Social learning and the replication process: an experimental investigation

Abstract

Human cultural traits typically result from a gradual process that has been described as analogous to biological evolution. This observation has led pioneering scholars to draw inspiration from population genetics to develop a rigorous and successful theoretical framework of cultural evolution. Social learning, the mechanism allowing information to be transmitted between individuals, has thus been described as a simple replication mechanism. Although useful, the extent to which this idealization appropriately describes the actual social learning events has not been carefully assessed. Here, we used a specifically developed computer task to evaluate (i) the extent to which social learning leads to the replication of an observed behaviour and (ii) the consequences it has for fitness landscape exploration. Our results show that social learning does not lead to a dichotomous choice between disregarding and replicating social information. Rather, it appeared that individuals combine and transform information coming from multiple sources to produce new solutions. As a consequence, landscape exploration was promoted by the use of social information. These results invite us to rethink the way social learning is commonly modelled and could question the validity of predictions coming from models considering this process as replicative.

Foundations of cumulative culture in apes: improved foraging efficiency through relinquishing and combining witnessed behaviours in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

“…Such an ability, while not yet truly cumulative, may be one of the foundational abilities (or candidate mechanisms) for human cumulative culture, through the ability to “add an existing technique used in a different context ….to an existing technique, and integrate them functionally” (p.181 44 ). This shares similarities with human studies in which recombination of behavioural variants is employed to move solutions closer to an optimum 45 46 47 48 49 50 ; that is, accumulation may commonly be brought about through novel recombination of existing behaviours, creating “innovations without invention, creativity or trial and error learning” (p.5 49 ).…”

The foundations of the human cultural niche

“…The humans' ability to produce successful guided variation was greatly amplified when it was combined with social information and allowed groups of six humans to score 15 times higher than same-sized groups of bots. This interaction between reasoning and social learning abilities could indicate that observing other players' solutions allowed social learners to refine their own intuitions about the properties of items faster than individuals working alone 21 . It is also possible that groups, due to complementary knowledge or experience, collectively explored a wider range of possibilities than individuals working alone, even though participants shared strong intuitions about which combinations are most likely to be successful.…”

Innovation and cumulative culture through tweaks and leaps in online programming contests

“…As a result, experimental approaches to-date have been restricted to simplified cases, such as the building of paper airplanes, or towers from spaghetti and plasticine 15 , 16 . Such studies, like others using simple tasks like building virtual fishing nets 17 or knot-making 18 , are informative, but do not approach the intricacy and richness of real-world cumulative cultural evolution.…”