scholarly journals The Creative Process of Cultural Evolution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liane Gabora
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Agent Based Model ◽  
Creative Processes ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Scientific Framework

This chapter explores how we can better understand culture by understanding the creative processes that fuel it, and better understand creativity by examining it from its cultural context. First, it summarizes attempts to develop a scientific framework for how culture evolves, and it explores what these frameworks imply for the role of creativity in cultural evolution. Next it examines how questions about the relationship between creativity and cultural evolution have been addressed using an agent-based model in which neural network-based agents collectively generate increasingly fit ideas by building on previous ideas and imitating neighbors’ ideas. Finally, it outlines studies of how creative outputs are influenced, in perhaps unexpected ways, by other ideas and individuals, and how individual creative styles “peek through” cultural outputs in different domains.

scholarly journals New Media, New Literacies and the Adolescent Learner

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janette Hughes
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
Research Study ◽  
New Literacies ◽  
Creative Processes ◽  
Adolescent Students ◽  
The Relationship

The goal of this research study was to develop a conceptualization of the relationship between new digital media and adolescent students' writing of poetry while immersed in using new media. More specifically, the research focused on the performative affordances of new media and how these interacted with the students' creative processes as they created digital poems. The article examines eight themes that emerged during the study, including the multimodal, multilinear and collaborative nature of the poems, the role of audience and identity in the creative process, and the shifting views of poetry the students experienced.

scholarly journals The Cultural Evolution of Language

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael Bailes ◽  
Christine Cuskley
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
The Relationship

Language is one of only a handful of human cultural systems that is both unique to our species, and universal. This chapter will focus on the cultural evolution of language, situating this alongside the phylogenetic and developmental timescales which also feed into the evolution of language. The chapter begins by outlining the relationship between the emergence of human language and the language faculty and the more rapid, ongoing processes of language change, which are often framed as predominantly cultural. In particular, previous work has emphasised how these timescales interact, and how cultural factors in particular shape which aspects of language exhibit broad cross-cultural variation or stability. This is followed by detailed evidence for this relationship from three domains, focusing on the role of cultural evolution in language as observed in natural language (both historical corpora and cross linguistic data), the cultural evolution of language in agent-based models, and finally, experimental studies of the cultural evolution of language. We conclude that the study of the cultural evolution of language forms an important data-rich model for the study of the evolution of cultural systems more generally, while also providing key insights into the specific dynamics of this uniquely human behaviour.

scholarly journals Exploring the effectiveness of a COVID-19 contact tracing app using an agent-based model

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonatan Almagor ◽  
Stefano Picascia
Keyword(s):  
High Rate ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Agent Based Model ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
The Social ◽  
Behavioural Factors ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
User Rate

AbstractA contact-tracing strategy has been deemed necessary to contain the spread of COVID-19 following the relaxation of lockdown measures. Using an agent-based model, we explore one of the technology-based strategies proposed, a contact-tracing smartphone app. The model simulates the spread of COVID-19 in a population of agents on an urban scale. Agents are heterogeneous in their characteristics and are linked in a multi-layered network representing the social structure—including households, friendships, employment and schools. We explore the interplay of various adoption rates of the contact-tracing app, different levels of testing capacity, and behavioural factors to assess the impact on the epidemic. Results suggest that a contact tracing app can contribute substantially to reducing infection rates in the population when accompanied by a sufficient testing capacity or when the testing policy prioritises symptomatic cases. As user rate increases, prevalence of infection decreases. With that, when symptomatic cases are not prioritised for testing, a high rate of app users can generate an extensive increase in the demand for testing, which, if not met with adequate supply, may render the app counterproductive. This points to the crucial role of an efficient testing policy and the necessity to upscale testing capacity.

Group Selection in the Evolution of Religion: Genetic Evolution or Cultural Evolution?

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 235-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor Davis
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Genetic Group ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
Psychological Traits ◽  
Religious Psychology ◽  
Religious Evolution ◽  
The Relationship

In the scientific literature on religious evolution, two competing theories appeal to group selection to explain the relationship between religious belief and altruism, or costly, prosocial behavior. Both theories agree that group selection plays an important role in cultural evolution, affecting psychological traits that individuals acquire through social learning. They disagree, however, about whether group selection has also played a role in genetic evolution, affecting traits that are inherited genetically. Recently, Jonathan Haidt has defended the most fully developed account based on genetic group selection, and I argue here that problems with this account reveal good reasons to doubt that genetic group selection has played any important role in human evolution at all. Thus, considering the role of group selection in religious evolution is important not just because of what it reveals about religious psychology and religious evolution, but also because of what it reveals about the role of group selection in human evolution more generally.

DE REDACTEUR EN HET BUITENLAND

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-27
Author(s):  
Wouter Egelmeers ◽  
Joris Vandendriessche
Keyword(s):  
Creative Process ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
International Level ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
Disciplinary Field ◽  
Dutch History ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Selection Of

IMPORTING TEXTS FROM ABROAD Editors’ reuse of foreign historical texts in Dutch periodicals, 1780-1860 This article explores the ways in which the editors of five Dutch history journals and three magazines for general circulation copied historical texts from abroad, between 1780 and 1860. By comparing original texts with reprinted versions, we show that the editors’ work involved not only ‘passive’ duplication (reprinting in full), but also more active forms of intervention, from the selection of text fragments to their translation, modification or critical review. These varied editorial practices point to a broader creative process through which historical knowledge was tailored to an emerging and nationally-oriented academic audience. Editors here assumed the role of mediators, gatekeepers even in the sense that their judgment determined the very choice of texts. At a time when the study of history was evolving at both the national and international level, and when the relationship between actors making up the disciplinary field was also in flux, editors thus became influential figures.

scholarly journals Connectivism in the Network Society. The Coming of Social Capital Knowledge

2018 ◽  
pp. 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Antonio Díaz Martínez ◽  
Teodoro Hernández de Frutos
Keyword(s):  
Work Experience ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Online Social Network ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Collaborative Group ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Network Approaches ◽  
The Relationship

Connectivism is a hypothesis of learning which emphasizes the role of the social and cultural context. The relationship among work experience, learning and knowledge, as expressed in the concept of connectivity, is central to connectivism, motivating the name of the theory. According to the current status of online social network approaches, the interconnected computers increase the human intellect, because the network increases the cognitive capacity of individuals. The change in the role of knowledge that is taking place in society has to do with the relationship between technology and society. A collaborative group of knowledge building in the network is emerging as a result of the technological trends and culture. This article discusses the arrival of Virtual Communities of Building Knowledge (VCBK) as a phenomenon that appears spontaneously online. Traditional theories of learning and construction of knowledge have not taken into account the revolution that has occurred in recent decades due to the emergence of ICT. The connectivism refers to the knowledge in the network that arises from the interaction within a group of knowledge construction. In this paper, we consider some cases of VCBK: GNU/Linux, Wikipedia and MOOC. In VCBK, knowledge is created by the group. The sense or meaning created is the result of the group’s dialogue.

Expatriate partners’ personality and its influence on acculturation into a new cultural context: Examining the role of dispositional affectivity

2021 ◽  
pp. 147059582110573
Author(s):  
Sebastian Stoermer ◽  
Jan Selmer ◽  
Jakob Lauring
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Negative Affectivity ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Positive Affectivity ◽  
Full Support ◽  
Community Embeddedness ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Positive And Negative Affectivity

Despite the vital role that trailing partners play for successful expatriation, we still know very little about what actually causes partners to thrive and integrate effectively into the new cultural context. However, as indications have emerged that the personality of partners could be key to a favorable acculturation trajectory, we set out to explore this further. More specifically, we assess the role of expatriate partners’ dispositional affectivity, that is, positive and negative affectivity. We examine this in relation to internal acculturation (in the form of interaction and general adjustment) and external acculturation (in the form of local community embeddedness and intentions to stay or to return home). Drawing on the data of 123 trailing partners, full support was found for three out of four hypotheses regarding the effects of positive affectivity. Further, a marginally significant negative association was identified for the relationship between positive affectivity and repatriation intentions. For negative affectivity, two hypotheses were met. Interestingly, no significant influence of negative affectivity on community embeddedness was found. The association between negative affectivity and interaction adjustment was marginally significant indicating some tentative support. In sum, this study corroborates that dispositional affectivity is an overall important concept to explain trailing partners’ acculturation. However, the role of positive and negative affectivity seems to vary along the different proxies of internal and external acculturation.

Endogenous Uncertainty and the Dynamics of Constraints

2019 ◽  
pp. 246-260
Author(s):  
Paul Humphreys
Keyword(s):  
Utility Maximization ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Fitness Landscape ◽  
Agent Based Model ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Endogenous Uncertainty ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Simulation Results ◽  
Special Case

An agent- based model of social dynamics is introduced using a deformable fitness landscape, and it is shown that in certain clearly specifiable situations, strategies that are different from utility maximization outperform utility maximizers. Simulation results are presented and intuitive interpretations of the results provided. The situations considered occur when individuals' actions affect the outcomes for other agents and endogenous effects are dominant. The Tragedy of the Commons is merely a special case of this. Arguments are given that constraints are to be encouraged in some circumstances. The appropriate role of constraints in various types of society is assessed and their use justified in identifiable types of situations.

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