Social Transmission of Acquired Behavior: A Discussion of Tradition and Social Learning in Vertebrates

1976 ◽  
pp. 77-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bennett G. Galef
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Transmission

scholarly journals When to approach novel prey cues? Social learning strategies in frog-eating bats

2013 ◽  
Vol 280 (1772) ◽  
pp. 20132330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia L. Jones ◽  
Michael J. Ryan ◽  
Victoria Flores ◽  
Rachel A. Page
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
Trachops Cirrhosus ◽  
Different Sources ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

Animals can use different sources of information when making decisions. Foraging animals often have access to both self-acquired and socially acquired information about prey. The fringe-lipped bat, Trachops cirrhosus , hunts frogs by approaching the calls that frogs produce to attract mates. We examined how the reliability of self-acquired prey cues affects social learning of novel prey cues. We trained bats to associate an artificial acoustic cue (mobile phone ringtone) with food rewards. Bats were assigned to treatments in which the trained cue was either an unreliable indicator of reward (rewarded 50% of the presentations) or a reliable indicator (rewarded 100% of the presentations), and they were exposed to a conspecific tutor foraging on a reliable (rewarded 100%) novel cue or to the novel cue with no tutor. Bats whose trained cue was unreliable and who had a tutor were significantly more likely to preferentially approach the novel cue when compared with bats whose trained cue was reliable, and to bats that had no tutor. Reliability of self-acquired prey cues therefore affects social learning of novel prey cues by frog-eating bats. Examining when animals use social information to learn about novel prey is key to understanding the social transmission of foraging innovations.

Social Learning Mechanisms

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Hoppitt ◽  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Facilitation ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Local Enhancement ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Response Facilitation ◽  
Stimulus Enhancement

This chapter presents a classification of social learning mechanisms and explains how these mechanisms can be distinguished empirically. In most published social learning studies it is very difficult to determine exactly which mechanisms are operating. This is because experiments are often not designed with this primary purpose. Nonetheless, in such cases a researcher may still wish to draw some inferences about the process underlying a particular case of social learning. The chapter discusses stimulus enhancement, local enhancement, observational conditioning, response facilitation, social facilitation, imitation, observational R-S learning, emulation, opportunity providing, inadvertent coaching, and production imitation. It also considers a pragmatic approach to characterizing mechanisms of social transmission.

scholarly journals Ecology of information: social transmission dynamics within groups of non-social insects

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1801) ◽  
pp. 20142480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marine Battesti ◽  
Cristian Pasquaretta ◽  
Celine Moreno ◽  
Serafino Teseo ◽  
Dominique Joly ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Insects ◽  
Oviposition Preference ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Transmission Dynamics ◽  
Information Spread ◽  
Oviposition Substrate ◽  
Behavioural Tests

While many studies focus on how animals use public information, the dynamics of information spread and maintenance within groups, i.e. the ‘ecology of information’, have received little attention. Here we use fruitflies trained to lay eggs on specific substrates to implement information into groups containing both trained and untrained individuals. We quantify inter-individual interactions and then measure the spread of oviposition preference with behavioural tests. Untrained individuals increase their interactive approaches in the presence of trained individuals, and the oviposition preference transmission is directly proportional to how much trained and untrained individuals interact. Unexpectedly, the preference of trained individuals to their trained oviposition substrate decreases after interactions with untrained individuals, leading to an overall informational loss. This shows that social learning alone is not enough to support informational stability.

scholarly journals Social learning in otters

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 170489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zosia Ladds ◽  
William Hoppitt ◽  
Neeltje J. Boogert
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Food Sources ◽  
Primate Species ◽  
Diffusion Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Association Data ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

The use of information provided by others to tackle life's challenges is widespread, but should not be employed indiscriminately if it is to be adaptive. Evidence is accumulating that animals are indeed selective and adopt ‘social learning strategies’. However, studies have generally focused on fish, bird and primate species. Here we extend research on social learning strategies to a taxonomic group that has been neglected until now: otters (subfamily Lutrinae). We collected social association data on captive groups of two gregarious species: smooth-coated otters ( Lutrogale perspicillata ), known to hunt fish cooperatively in the wild, and Asian short-clawed otters ( Aonyx cinereus ), which feed individually on prey requiring extractive foraging behaviours. We then presented otter groups with a series of novel foraging tasks, and inferred social transmission of task solutions with network-based diffusion analysis. We show that smooth-coated otters can socially learn how to exploit novel food sources and may adopt a ‘copy when young’ strategy. We found no evidence for social learning in the Asian short-clawed otters. Otters are thus a promising model system for comparative research into social learning strategies, while conservation reintroduction programmes may benefit from facilitating the social transmission of survival skills in these vulnerable species.

Repertoire-Based Methods for Detecting and Quantifying Social Transmission

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Hoppitt ◽  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Model Fitting ◽  
Causal Modeling ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
The Social ◽  
Behavior Based ◽  
Genetic Hypothesis

This chapter describes repertoire-based methods for detecting and quantifying the social transmission of behavior based on a “snapshot” of the behavioral repertoires of individuals or groups. Repertoire-based methods often take the form of a group contrast approach, where the researcher attempts to ascertain whether different groups have different behavioral repertoires, which might be caused by a higher rate of social transmission within groups than between them. The chapter first considers approaches that can be applied to determine whether group differences in behavior exist, including the group contrasts approach and the method of exclusion. In particular, it discusses methods for assessing the genetic hypothesis and the ecological hypothesis. It also presents a model-fitting approach and a causal modeling framework. Finally, it highlights the limitations of studying social learning based solely on differences in repertoires.

Methods for Studying Social Learning in the Laboratory

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Hoppitt ◽  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Observational Learning ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Experimental Designs ◽  
Controlled Diffusion ◽  
Diffusion Studies

This chapter describes research methods for investigating social learning in the laboratory. In recent decades laboratory experiments have been conducted to explore the population-level aspects of social transmission; an example is the investigation of aspects of tradition, diffusion, and innovation. This chapter discusses traditional social learning experimental designs, studies of linear transmission chains and replacement transmission chains, and controlled diffusion studies. It also considers some recent neuroscientific analyses of social learning, which extend the study of social learning beyond the behavioral level. In particular, it examines innovation, the biological bases of social learning, neuroendocrinological studies, social learning of fear, and neural mechanisms of observational learning.

scholarly journals Cultural diffusion dynamics depend on behavioural production rules

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Chimento ◽  
Brendan J. Barrett ◽  
Anne Kandler ◽  
Lucy M. Aplin
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Production Rules ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Cultural Diffusion ◽  
Diffusion Analysis ◽  
Diffusion Dynamics ◽  
The Social

Culture is an outcome of the acquisition of knowledge about behaviour through social transmission, and its subsequent production. Transmission and production are often discussed interchangeably or modeled separately, yet to date, no study has accounted for both processes and explored their interaction. We present a generative model that integrates the two in order to explore how variation in either might shape cultural diffusion dynamics. Agents make behavioural choices that change as they learn from their behavioural productions. Their repertoires also change over time, and the social transmission of behaviours depends on their frequency. We diffuse a novel behaviour through social networks across a large parameter space to demonstrate how accounting for both transmission and production reveals dependencies between individual-level behavioural production rules and population-level diffusion dynamics. We then investigate how such dependencies might affect the performance of two commonly used inferential models for social learning; Network-based Diffusion Analysis (NBDA), and Experienced Weighted Attraction models (EWA). By clarifying the distinction between acquisition and usage, we illuminate often-overlooked theoretical differences between social learning and social influence. These distinctions yield consequences and new considerations for how inferential methods are applied to empirical studies of culture.

Social transmission bias and the cultural evolution of folk-economic beliefs

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hirshleifer ◽  
Siew Hong Teoh
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Economic Attitudes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Beliefs ◽  
Over Time

AbstractEvolved dispositions influence, but do not determine, how people think about economic problems. The evolutionary cognitive approach offers important insights but underweights the social transmission of ideas as a level of explanation. The need for asocialexplanation for the evolution of economic attitudes is evidenced, for example, by immense variations in folk-economic beliefs over time and across individuals.

A cognitive approach to cumulative technological culture is useful and necessary but only if it also applies to other species

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thibaud Gruber
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Technological Culture ◽  
Social Learning Processes

Abstract The debate on cumulative technological culture (CTC) is dominated by social-learning discussions, at the expense of other cognitive processes, leading to flawed circular arguments. I welcome the authors' approach to decouple CTC from social-learning processes without minimizing their impact. Yet, this model will only be informative to understand the evolution of CTC if tested in other cultural species.

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