The evolution of high-fidelity social learning

Abstract

A defining feature of human culture is that knowledge and technology continually improve over time. Such cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) probably depends far more heavily on how reliably information is preserved than on how efficiently it is refined. Therefore, one possible reason that CCE appears diminished or absent in other species is that it requires accurate but specialized forms of social learning at which humans are uniquely adept. Here, we develop a Bayesian model to contrast the evolution of high-fidelity social learning, which supports CCE, against low-fidelity social learning, which does not. We find that high-fidelity transmission evolves when (1) social and (2) individual learning are inexpensive, (3) traits are complex, (4) individual learning is abundant, (5) adaptive problems are difficult and (6) behaviour is flexible. Low-fidelity transmission differs in many respects. It not only evolves when (2) individual learning is costly and (4) infrequent but also proves more robust when (3) traits are simple and (5) adaptive problems are easy. If conditions favouring the evolution of high-fidelity transmission are stricter (3 and 5) or harder to meet (2 and 4), this could explain why social learning is common, but CCE is rare.

Copy the In-group: Group Membership Trumps Perceived Reliability, Warmth, and Competence in a Social-Learning Task

“…Finally, the fact that the in-group-copying bias produced some amount of cultural divergence in both of our experiments is of particular interest from a cultural evolutionary point of view. This is because the exceptional complexity of human culture and technology (Montrey & Shultz, 2020) likely depends on integrating and recombining diverse cultural traits (Mesoudi & Thornton, 2018). Theory suggests that for cultural evolution to be cumulative (i.e., for complexity to increase over time), populations may have to be fragmented to some degree so that unique traits have the opportunity to flourish (Derex et al, 2018).…”

“…As humans, we rely heavily on social learning, which allows us to benefit from others’ knowledge without incurring the same costs or undertaking the same risks (Montrey & Shultz, 2020). However, copying is not always adaptive (Kendal et al, 2018).…”

Do nonhuman animals reason about prestige‐based status?

“…Humans are an exceptionally social species for whom cultural transmission and social learning is rampant and essential (see Boyd et al., 2011; Call et al., 2007; Jiménez & Mesoudi, 2019; Montrey & Shultz, 2020). Yet, as even Henrich and Gil‐White (2001) note, social learning is not unique to humans (as reviewed in Cacchione & Amici, 2020; Heyes & Galef, 1996).…”

Modeling Discontinuous Cultural Evolution: The Impact of Cross-Domain Transfer

“…2 Formal theories and models of cultural evolution must be able to accommodate discontinuities, because they permeate all branches of culture, including art, science, and technology, as well as economic and political systems (Kuhn, 1962;Wilson, 1973;Bar-Yosef, 1998). They present a formidable challenge for models of cultural evolution, which often have built-in assumptions about how new innovations build on established knowledge (Lewis and Laland, 2012;Montrey and Shultz, 2020). The assumption that new knowledge in a domain builds incrementally on existing knowledge in that domain is inconsistent with findings that entrenchment in established practices and perspectives can hinder innovation, and cultural breakthroughs often come about by striking out in an altogether new direction (Frensch and Sternberg, 1989;Wiley, 1998).…”