Adaptive cultural transmission biases in children and nonhuman primates

Abstract

Comparative and evolutionary developmental analyses seek to discover the similarities and differences between humans and non-human species that might illuminate both the evolutionary foundations of our nature that we share with other animals, and the distinctive characteristics that make human development unique. As our closest animal relatives, with whom we last shared common ancestry, non-human primates have been particularly important in this endeavour. Such studies have focused on social learning, traditions, and culture, and have discovered much about the 'how' of social learning, concerned with key underlying processes such as imitation and emulation. One of the core discoveries is that the adaptive adjustment of social learning options to different contexts is not unique to human, therefore multiple new strands of research have begun to focus on more subtle questions about when, from whom, and why such learning occurs. Here we review illustrative studies on both human infants and young children and on non-human primates to identify the similarities shared more broadly across the primate order, and the apparent specialisms that distinguish human development. Adaptive biases in social learning discussed include those modulated by task comprehension, experience, conformity to majorities, and the age, skill, proficiency and familiarity of potential alternative cultural models.

Differences in novel food response betweenPongoandPan

“…Factors related to cautiousness such as neophobia and inhibitory control, promote cognitive plasticity and problem‐solving skills in apes (Beran & Hopkins, ; Damerius et al, , Damerius, Graber, Willems, & van Schaik, 2017; Forss et al, ; MacLean et al, ; Manrique et al, ). However, socially biased neophobia can also be related to prevention of behavioral flexibility leading to conservatism, which in turn hinders innovativeness (Gruber, Muller, Strimling, Wrangham, & Zuberbühler, ; Harrison & Whiten, ; Hrubesch, Preuschoft, & van Schaik, ; Price, Wood, & Whiten, ). By addressing both within species plasticity and intraspecific comparisons, future research can hopefully clarify the role of neophobia and cautiousness in the adaptation of new foraging techniques demanding behavioral flexibility.…”

Culture extends the scope of evolutionary biology in the great apes

“…Evidence in great apes has been adduced for a number of the potential learning rules these analyses highlight (97). Evidence for a copy-the-majority rule, suggested by the apparent conformity of chimpanzees in diffusion experiments (68), came in further experiments showing that both children and chimpanzees would copy the choices of three other conspecifics rather than those of a single individual repeating the same act three times (98).…”

The extension of biology through culture

“…Examples include biases to copy behavioral routines, where there is evidence they are successful, conformist copying of the majority (exploiting "the wisdom of the crowd"), and indirect biases, such as copying individuals on the basis of their reputation or group identity. Evidence for an array of such biases has accumulated in studies of both human and animal cultural transmission (88) and are further addressed in this collection (48,72,73).…”