Visible spatial contiguity of social information and reward affects social learning in brown capuchins (<i>Sapajus apella</i>) and children (<i>Homo sapiens</i>)

Animal social learning is typically studied experimentally by the presentation of artificial foraging tasks. Although productive, results are often variable even for the same species. We present and test the hypothesis that one cause of variation is that spatial distance between rewards and the means of reward release causes conflicts for participants’ attentional focus. We investigated whether spatial contiguity between a visible reward and the means of release would affect behavioral responses that evidence social learning, testing 21 brown capuchins (Sapajus apella), a much studied species with variant evidence for social learning, and 180 two- to four-year old human children (Homo sapiens), a benchmark species known for a strong social learning disposition. Participants were presented with a novel transparent apparatus where a reward was either proximal or distal to a demonstrated means of releasing it. A distal reward location decreased attention towards the location of the demonstration and impaired subsequent success in gaining rewards. Generally, the capuchins produced the alternative method to that demonstrated whereas children copied the method demonstrated, although a distal reward location reduced copying in younger children. We conclude that some design features in common social learning tasks may significantly degrade the evidence for social learning. We have demonstrated this for two different primates but suggest that it is a significant factor to control for in social learning research across all taxa

Diverse species readily acquire copies of novel actions from others that are not achieved through individual learning

The cultural transmission of behaviour patterns across animal populations and between generations has been rigorously demonstrated in diverse vertebrate species and also in insects, but controversies continue about exactly what distinguishes nonhuman from human cultural learning. A contentious contemporary debate concerns a hypothetical ‘zone of latent solutions’ (ZLS), conceptualized as all that members of a species can acquire by individual learning. The ZLS hypothesis proposes that cumulative culture is restricted to humans because of a unique ability to copy behavioural innovations beyond our species' ZLS. Apes and other taxa are argued instead to be limited to copying only behaviours that are already within their ZLS, thus constraining their capacity for cumulative culture. Here I suggest that empirical tests of this hypothesis are scattered through the research literature covering social learning experiments and I collate relevant instances. Over 20 such studies spanning mammals, birds, fish and insects demonstrate social learning of novel actions new to the species that no individual acquires through its own efforts. Many offer particularly compelling refutation of the ZLS hypothesis because in addition to documenting an absence of individual level learning, they incorporate designs showing that observers match whichever of two alternative forms of action they witnessed or include multistep actions that are clearly challenging for individuals of the species studied to acquire by individual learning.Peer reviewe

Does culture shape hunting behavior in bonobos?

New evidence that neighboring communities of bonobos hunt different prey species, despite extensive overlaps in where they live and hunt, is difficult to explain without invoking cultural factors.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The interaction of social and perceivable causal factors in shaping ‘over-imitation’

Over-imitation has become a well-documented phenomenon. However there is evidence that both social and visible, physically causal factors can influence the occurrence of over-imitation in children. Here we explore the interplay between these two factors, manipulating both task opacity and social information. Four- to 7-year-old children were given either a causally opaque or transparent box, before which they experienced either (1) a condition where they witnessed a taught, knowledgeable person demonstrate an inefficient method and an untaught model demonstrate a more efficient method; or (2) a baseline condition where they witnessed efficient and inefficient methods performed by two untaught models. Results showed that the level of imitation increased with greater task opacity and when children received social information about knowledgeability consequent on teaching, but only for 6- to 7-year-olds. The findings show that children are selectively attuned to both causal and social factors when learning new cultural knowledge

Reinterpreting the Mentality of Apes

This chapter reviews the evidence for theory of mind in great apes and evaluates Povinelli's so-called 'reinterpretation hypothesis'. Introduction As a soccer player, one of us was often confronted with the challenging dilemma of taking penalty kicks. Up to about age 13 I (T.S.) could quite reliably convert the shot by simply peeking briefly to one corner of the goal, running up and then casually placing the ball in the other corner. I relied not on the accuracy or velocity of my shot, but almost entirely on fooling the keeper that I intended to shoot in the opposite direction. But then some clever keepers picked up on this simplest of tricks and tried to thwart my attempt by jumping in the opposite corner to the one I looked to. Some even tried to turn the tables by offering one side (moving closer to the other post). The battle became increasingly more challenging as I was sizing up the keeper's ability to read my intentions and do the opposite of what I thought he thought. For example, I pretend to place it right, but I think that he thinks I am only pretending to place it right - so I may chose to place it right after all. This is 'theory of mind' in action. Most theory-of-mind research uses verbal paradigms to assess children's reasoning about the mind. As the above example illustrates, however, theory of mind manifests in our non-verbal actions. Naturally, investigations into potential theory of mind in non-human animals must rely on such non-verbal performances. Whether our closest animal relatives share such manifestations of theory of mind has been a topic of much research and discussion in recent years. But identification of an unequivocal behavioural indicator for mind-reading has proved frustratingly difficult..

A second inheritance system : the extension of biology through culture

By the mid-twentieth century (thus following the ‘Modern Synthesis’ in evolutionary biology), the behavioural sciences offered only the sketchy beginnings of a scientific literature documenting evidence for cultural inheritance in animals – the transmission of traditional behaviours via learning from others (social learning). By contrast, recent decades have seen a massive growth in the documentation of such cultural phenomena, driven by long-term field studies and complementary laboratory experiments. Here I review the burgeoning scope of discoveries in this field, which increasingly suggest that this ‘second inheritance system’, built on the shoulders of the primary genetic inheritance system, occurs widely amongst vertebrates and possibly in invertebrates too. Its novel characteristics suggest significant implications for our understanding of evolutionary biology. I assess the extent to which this second system extends the scope of evolution, both by echoing principal properties of the primary, organic evolutionary system, and going beyond it in significant ways. This is well established in human cultural evolution; here I address animal cultures more generally. The further major, and related, question concerns the extent to which the consequences of widespread animal cultural transmission interact with the primary, genetically based inheritance systems, shaping organic evolution.PostprintPeer reviewe

Behavioral conservatism is linked to complexity of behavior in chimpanzees (<i>Pan troglodytes</i>):implications for cognition and cumulative culture

Cumulative culture is rare, if not altogether absent in nonhuman species. At the foundation of cumulative learning is the ability to modify, relinquish, or build upon previous behaviors flexibly to make them more productive or efficient. Within the primate literature, a failure to optimize solutions in this way is often proposed to derive from low-fidelity copying of witnessed behaviors, suboptimal social learning heuristics, or a lack of relevant sociocognitive adaptations. However, humans can also be markedly inflexible in their behaviors, perseverating with, or becoming fixated on, outdated or inappropriate responses. Humans show differential patterns of flexibility as a function of cognitive load, exhibiting difficulties with inhibiting suboptimal behaviors when there are high demands on working memory. We present a series of studies on captive chimpanzees that indicate that behavioral conservatism in apes may be underlain by similar constraints: Chimpanzees showed relatively little conservatism when behavioral optimization involved the inhibition of a well-established but simple solution, or the addition of a simple modification to a well-established but complex solution. In contrast, when behavioral optimization involved the inhibition of a well-established but complex solution, chimpanzees showed evidence of conservatism. We propose that conservatism is linked to behavioral complexity, potentially mediated by cognitive resource availability, and may be an important factor in the evolution of cumulative culture.</p

Cultural diffusion in humans and other animals

Recent years have seen an enormous expansion and progress in studies of the cultural diffusion processes through which behaviour patterns, ideas and artifacts are transmitted within and between generations of humans and other animals. The first of two main approaches focuses on identifying, tracing and understanding cultural diffusion as it naturally occurs, an essential foundation to any science of culture. This endeavor has been enriched in recent years by sophisticated statistical methods and surprising new discoveries particularly in humans, other primates and cetaceans. This work has been complemented by a growing corpus of powerful, purpose-designed cultural diffusion experiments with captive and natural populations that have facilitated the rigorous identification and analysis of cultural diffusion in species from insects to humans

Culture extends the scope of evolutionary biology in the great apes

Discoveries about the cultures and cultural capacities of the great apes have played a leading role in the recognition emerging in recent decades that cultural inheritance can be a significant factor in the lives not only of humans, but of non-human animals. This prominence derives in part from the fact that these primates are those with whom we share the most recent common ancestry, thus offering clues to the origins of our own thoroughgoing reliance on cumulative cultural achievements. In addition, the intense research focus on these species has spawned an unprecedented diversity of complementary methodological approaches, the results of which suggest that cultural phenomena pervade the lives of these apes, with potentially major implications for their broader evolutionary biology. Here I review what this extremely broad array of observational and experimental methodologies has taught us about the cultural lives of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, and consider the ways in which this extends our wider understanding of primate biology and the processes of adaptation and evolution that shape it. I address these issues by first evaluating the extent to which the results of cultural inheritance echo a suite of core principles that underlie organic, Darwinian evolution, but also extend them in new ways; and secondly by assessing the principal causal interactions between the primary, genetically-based organic processes of evolution, and the secondary system of cultural inheritance that is based on social learning from others.PostprintPeer reviewe