A number of learning models are commonly employed in the simulation of social behavior. These include population learning, lifetime learning and cultural learning. Population learning allows populations as a whole to evolve over time, typically through a Darwinian model of natural selection. Lifetime learning allows individuals to acquire knowledge during their lifetimes and cultural learning allows individuals to pass this knowledge to their peers or subsequent generations. This work examines the effects of cultural learning on both the fitness and the diversity of a population of neural network agents. A population employing population learning alone and one employing both population and cultural learning are assigned three benchmark tasks: the 5-bit parity problem, the game of tic-tac-toe and the game of connect-four. Each agent contains a genome which encodes a neural network controller used by the agent to perceive and react to environmental stimuli. Results show that the addition of cultural learning promotes improved fitness and significantly increases both genotypic (the genetic make up of individuals) and phenotypic (the behavior of individuals) diversity in the population.

Population learning can be described as the iterative Darwinian process of fitness-based selection and genetic transfer of information leading to populations of higher fitness and is often simulated using genetic algorithms. Cultural learning describes the process of information transfer between individuals in a population through non-genetic means. Cultural learning has been simulated by combining genetic algorithms and neural networks using a teacher-pupil scenario where highly fit individuals are selected as teachers and instruct the next generation. By examining the innate fitness of a population (i.e., the fitness of the population measured before any cultural learning takes place), it is possible to examine the effects of cultural learning on the population's genetic makeup. Our model explores the effect of cultural learning on a population and employs three benchmark sequential decision tasks as the evolutionary task for the population: connect-four, tic-tac-toe, and blackjack. Experiments are conducted with populations employing population learning alone and populations combining population and cultural learning. The article presents results showing the gradual transfer of knowledge from genes to the cultural process, illustrated by the simultaneous decrease in the population's innate fitness and the increase of its acquired fitness measured after learning takes place.

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