scholarly journals Pay-off-biased social learning underlies the diffusion of novel extractive foraging traditions in a wild primate

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1856) ◽  
pp. 20170358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan J. Barrett ◽  
Richard L. McElreath ◽  
Susan E. Perry
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
Adaptive Behaviour ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Important Variation ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Innovation And Diffusion

The type and variety of learning strategies used by individuals to acquire behaviours in the wild are poorly understood, despite the presence of behavioural traditions in diverse taxa. Social learning strategies such as conformity can be broadly adaptive, but may also retard the spread of adaptive innovations. Strategies like pay-off-biased learning, by contrast, are effective at diffusing new behaviour but may perform poorly when adaptive behaviour is common. We present a field experiment in a wild primate, Cebus capucinus , that introduced a novel food item and documented the innovation and diffusion of successful extraction techniques. We develop a multilevel, Bayesian statistical analysis that allows us to quantify individual-level evidence for different social and individual learning strategies. We find that pay-off-biased and age-biased social learning are primarily responsible for the diffusion of new techniques. We find no evidence of conformity; instead rare techniques receive slightly increased attention. We also find substantial and important variation in individual learning strategies that is patterned by age, with younger individuals being more influenced by both social information and their own individual experience. The aggregate cultural dynamics in turn depend upon the variation in learning strategies and the age structure of the wild population.

scholarly journals PAYOFF-BIASED SOCIAL LEARNING UNDERLIES THE DIFFUSION OF NOVEL EXTRACTIVE FORAGING TRADITIONS IN A WILD PRIMATE

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan J Barrett ◽  
Richard L McElreath ◽  
Susan E Perry
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
Adaptive Behaviour ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Important Variation ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Innovation And Diffusion

AbstractThe type and variety of learning strategies used by individuals to acquire behaviours in the wild are poorly understood, despite the presence of behavioural traditions in diverse taxa. Social learning strategies such as conformity can be broadly adaptive, but may also retard the spread of adaptive innovations. Strategies like payoff-biased learning, in contrast, are effective at diffusing new behaviour but may perform poorly when adaptive behaviour is common. We present a field experiment in a wild primate,Cebus capucinus, that introduced a novel food item and documented the innovation and diffusion of successful extraction techniques. We develop a multilevel, Bayesian statistical analysis that allows us to quantify individual-level evidence for different social and individual learning strategies. We find that payoff-biased social learning and age-biased social learning are primarily responsible for the diffusion of new techniques. We find no evidence of conformity; instead rare techniques receive slightly increased attention. We also find substantial and important variation in individual learning strategies that is patterned by age, with younger individuals being more influenced by both social information and their own individual experience. The aggregate cultural dynamics in turn depend upon the variation in learning strategies and the age structure of the wild population.

scholarly journals Strategic Social Learning and the Population Dynamics of Human Behavior: The Game of Go

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bret A Beheim ◽  
Calvin Thigpen ◽  
Richard McElreath
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Social Learning Processes

Human culture is widely believed to undergo evolution, via mechanisms rooted in the nature of human cognition. A number of theories predict the kinds of human learning strategies, as well as the population dynamics that result from their action. There is little work, however, that quantitatively examines the evidence for these strategies and resulting cultural evolution within human populations. One of the obstacles is the lack of individual-level data with which to link transmission events to larger cultural dynamics. Here, we address this problem with a rich quantitative database from the East Asian board game known as Go. We draw from a large archive of Go games spanning the last six decades of professional play, and find evidence that the evolutionary dynamics of particular cultural variants are driven by a mix of individual and social learning processes. Particular players vary dramatically in their sensitivity to population knowledge, which also varies by age and nationality. The dynamic patterns of opening Go moves are consistent with an ancient, ongoing arms race within the game itself.

scholarly journals Processing of novel food reveals payoff and rank-biased social learning in a wild primate

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Canteloup ◽  
Mabia B. Cera ◽  
Brendan J. Barrett ◽  
Erica van de Waal
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
Diffusion Experiment ◽  
Vervet Monkeys ◽  
Dynamic Learning ◽  
Novel Food ◽  
Bias Attention ◽  
Higher Rank ◽  
Learning From Others

AbstractSocial learning—learning from others—is the basis for behavioural traditions. Different social learning strategies (SLS), where individuals biasedly learn behaviours based on their content or who demonstrates them, may increase an individual’s fitness and generate behavioural traditions. While SLS have been mostly studied in isolation, their interaction and the interplay between individual and social learning is less understood. We performed a field-based open diffusion experiment in a wild primate. We provided two groups of vervet monkeys with a novel food, unshelled peanuts, and documented how three different peanut opening techniques spread within the groups. We analysed data using hierarchical Bayesian dynamic learning models that explore the integration of multiple SLS with individual learning. We (1) report evidence of social learning compared to strictly individual learning, (2) show that vervets preferentially socially learn the technique that yields the highest observed payoff and (3) also bias attention toward individuals of higher rank. This shows that behavioural preferences can arise when individuals integrate social information about the efficiency of a behaviour alongside cues related to the rank of a demonstrator. When these preferences converge to the same behaviour in a group, they may result in stable behavioural traditions.

Strong conformity requires a greater proportion of asocial learning and achieves lower fitness than a payoff-based equivalent

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 323-333
Author(s):  
Matt Grove
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
Heterogeneous Environments ◽  
The One ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

There is a growing interest in the relative benefits of the different social learning strategies used to transmit information between conspecifics and in the extent to which they require input from asocial learning. Two strategies in particular, conformist and payoff-based social learning, have been subject to considerable theoretical analysis, yet previous models have tended to examine their efficacy in relation to specific parameters or circumstances. This study employs individual-based simulations to derive the optimal proportion of individual learning that coexists with conformist and payoff-based strategies in populations experiencing wide-ranging variation in levels of environmental change, reproductive turnover, learning error and individual learning costs. Results demonstrate that conformity coexists with a greater proportion of asocial learning under all parameter combinations, and that payoff-based social learning is more adaptive in 97.43% of such combinations. These results are discussed in relation to the conjecture that the most successful social learning strategy will be the one that can persist with the lowest frequency of asocial learning, and the possibility that punishment of non-conformists may be required for conformity to confer adaptive benefits over payoff-based strategies in temporally heterogeneous environments.

NEW LEARNING STRATEGIES IN BUSTILLOS AND OLIVEIRA MODEL

2006 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 1415-1427
Author(s):  
MINGFENG HE ◽  
XIAOWEN PAN ◽  
XIAOJIA MU ◽  
LIN FENG
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Learning Capacity ◽  
New Learning ◽  
Penna Model ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Dependent Learning

Armando Ticona Bustillos and Paulo Murilo C. de Oliveira first combined learning strategy with Penna model using a third bit string to represent knowledge. There are two forms of learning strategy in their model: individual learning through trial-and-error and social learning through copying knowledge from others. Based on the Bustillos-Oliveira model, we propose a new learning strategy:. (1) Individual learning ability depending on knowledge, through which the individual learning ability is not a constant but in direct proportion to the knowledge level of individual;. (2) Double-direction Social learning, under this, not only the young can learn from the elder, but also the elder can learn from the young;. (3) The age-dependent learning capacity, we make the learning capacity a variable in inverse proportion to the age, unlike which has been represented in Bustillos and Oliveira's model as a constant. Under this new learning strategy represented above, we get different result in the level of knowledge of individuals from B-O model.

Cultural evolution in more than two dimensions: Distinguishing social learning biases and identifying payoff structures

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-92
Author(s):  
Alex Mesoudi
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Learning Biases ◽  
Payoff Structure ◽  
Social Learning Biases

AbstractBentley et al.’s two-dimensional conceptual map is complementary to cultural evolution research that has sought to explain population-level cultural dynamics in terms of individual-level behavioral processes. Here, I qualify their scheme by arguing that different social learning biases should be treated distinctly, and that the transparency of decisions is sometimes conflated with the actual underlying payoff structure of those decisions.

scholarly journals Experimental studies of modern human social and individual learning in an archaeological context: People behave adaptively, but within limits

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mesoudi
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
Adaptive Landscape ◽  
Adaptive Performance ◽  
Learning Abilities

It has been proposed that one reason for the success of Homo sapiens is our advanced learning abilities. Theoretical models suggest that complex cultural adaptations can arise from an optimal mix of (i) individual learning that is of sufficient accuracy plus (ii) social learning that is of sufficiently high fidelity and is payoff- biased. Here I review the findings of a series of experimental studies of human learning, designed to simulate the kind of technology-based tasks that our ancestors would have faced. Results of these studies support the predictions of the models, and show that contemporary humans’ learning strategies are broadly adaptive. Performance typically improved through effective individual learning and payoff-biased social learning. The latter crucially allowed participants to escape low-fitness locally optimal artifact designs and jump to higher-fitness designs, assuming a realistic multimodal adaptive landscape underlying artifact fitness. On the other hand, people also exhibited predictable flaws in their learning, such as the copying of neutral traits exhibited by successful models along with their functional traits (i.e. cultural hitchhiking), and an unwillingness to share information with others under certain circumstances.

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.

scholarly journals Spontaneous reoccurrence of “scooping”, a wild tool-use behaviour, in naïve chimpanzees

PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e3814 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Bandini ◽  
Claudio Tennie
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
Wild Chimpanzee ◽  
Technological Culture ◽  
Parsimonious Explanation ◽  
In The Wild

Modern human technological culture depends on social learning. A widespread assumption for chimpanzee tool-use cultures is that they, too, are dependent on social learning. However, we provide evidence to suggest that individual learning, rather than social learning, is the driver behind determining the form of these behaviours within and across individuals. Low-fidelity social learning instead merely facilitates the reinnovation of these behaviours, and thus helps homogenise the behaviour across chimpanzees, creating the population-wide patterns observed in the wild (what here we call “socially mediated serial reinnovations”). This is the main prediction of the Zone of Latent Solutions (ZLS) hypothesis. This study directly tested the ZLS hypothesis on algae scooping, a wild chimpanzee tool-use behaviour. We provided naïve chimpanzees (n = 14, Mage = 31.33, SD = 10.09) with ecologically relevant materials of the wild behaviour but, crucially, without revealing any information on the behavioural form required to accomplish this task. This study found that naïve chimpanzees expressed the same behavioural form as their wild counterparts, suggesting that, as the ZLS theory predicts, individual learning is the driver behind the frequency of this behavioural form. As more behaviours are being found to be within chimpanzee’s ZLS, this hypothesis now provides a parsimonious explanation for chimpanzee tool cultures.

scholarly journals Competition for resources can explain patterns of social and individual learning in nature

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1815) ◽  
pp. 20151405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Smolla ◽  
R. Tucker Gilman ◽  
Tobias Galla ◽  
Susanne Shultz
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
Resource Quality ◽  
Individual Trial ◽  
Evolutionary Force ◽  
Available Information ◽  
Novel Model

In nature, animals often ignore socially available information despite the multiple theoretical benefits of social learning over individual trial-and-error learning. Using information filtered by others is quicker, more efficient and less risky than randomly sampling the environment. To explain the mix of social and individual learning used by animals in nature, most models penalize the quality of socially derived information as either out of date, of poor fidelity or costly to acquire. Competition for limited resources, a fundamental evolutionary force, provides a compelling, yet hitherto overlooked, explanation for the evolution of mixed-learning strategies. We present a novel model of social learning that incorporates competition and demonstrates that (i) social learning is favoured when competition is weak, but (ii) if competition is strong social learning is favoured only when resource quality is highly variable and there is low environmental turnover. The frequency of social learning in our model always evolves until it reduces the mean foraging success of the population. The results of our model are consistent with empirical studies showing that individuals rely less on social information where resources vary little in quality and where there is high within-patch competition. Our model provides a framework for understanding the evolution of social learning, a prerequisite for human cumulative culture.

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