scholarly journals Identifying innovation in laboratory studies of cultural evolution: rates of retention and measures of adaptation

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1690) ◽  
pp. 20150193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A. Caldwell ◽  
Hannah Cornish ◽  
Anne Kandler
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Retention Rates ◽  
Laboratory Studies ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Task Success

In recent years, laboratory studies of cultural evolution have become increasingly prevalent as a means of identifying and understanding the effects of cultural transmission on the form and functionality of transmitted material. The datasets generated by these studies may provide insights into the conditions encouraging, or inhibiting, high rates of innovation, as well as the effect that this has on measures of adaptive cultural change. Here we review recent experimental studies of cultural evolution with a view to elucidating the role of innovation in generating observed trends. We first consider how tasks are presented to participants, and how the corresponding conceptualization of task success is likely to influence the degree of intent underlying any deviations from perfect reproduction. We then consider the measures of interest used by the researchers to track the changes that occur as a result of transmission, and how these are likely to be affected by differing rates of retention. We conclude that considering studies of cultural evolution from the perspective of innovation provides us with valuable insights that help to clarify important differences in research designs, which have implications for the likely effects of variation in retention rates on measures of cultural adaptation.

scholarly journals Digital culture

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Acerbi
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Digital Culture ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Cumulative Culture ◽  
Future Directions

Cultural evolution can provide a useful framework to understand how information is produced, transmitted, and selected in contemporary online, digital, media. The diffusion of digital technologies triggered a radical departure from previous modalities of cultural transmission but, at the same time, general characteristics of human cultural evolution and cognition influence these developments. In this chapter, I will explore some areas where the links between cultural evolution research and digital media seem more promising. As cultural evolution-inspired research on internet phenomena is still in its infancy, these areas represent suggestions and links with works in other disciplines more than reviews of past research in cultural evolution. These include topics such as how to characterise the online effects of social influence and the spread of information; the possibility that digital, online, media could enhance cumulative culture; and the differences between online and offline cultural transmission. In the last section I will consider other possible future directions: the influences of different affordances in different media supporting cultural transmission; the role of producers of cultural traits; and, finally, some considerations on the effects on cultural dynamics of algorithms selecting information.

scholarly journals Language As a Memory Carrier Of Perceptually-Based Knowledge. Selected Aspects Of Imagery In Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale And Troilus And Criseyde

2015 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-141
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Stadnik
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Troilus And Criseyde ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution

AbstractIn the paper, we address the question of the relation between language and culture from a Cognitive Linguistic perspective. While accounting for the role of language as an aid to cultural transmission in maintaining the community’s conceptual order, we address the question of whether the concept of a linguistic worldview aptly captures the interplay between language and culture. We suggest that, due to cumulative cultural evolution spurred by the incessant development of human knowledge, layers of conceptualisations accumulate over time. It is proposed that this palimpsest of conceptualisations results from human interaction that transcends the constraints of the present moment, encompassing the past and present, as well as delineating possible developments of the community’s future conceptual order.

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.

A theory limited in scope and evidence

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Miu ◽  
Robert Boyd ◽  
Peter J. Richerson ◽  
Thomas J. H. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution ◽  
Do So

Abstract What promised to be a refreshing addition to cumulative cultural evolution, by moving the focus from cultural transmission to technological innovation, falls flat through a lack of thoroughness, explanatory power, and data. A comprehensive theory of cumulative cultural change must carefully integrate all existing evidence in a cohesive multi-level account. We argue that the manuscript fails to do so convincingly.

scholarly journals Descent with modification and the archaeological record

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1567) ◽  
pp. 1070-1079 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Shennan
Keyword(s):  
Inverse Problem ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Cultural Patterns ◽  
Number Of Genes ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
Made In

Recent years have seen major advances in our understanding of the way in which cultural transmission takes place and the factors that affect it. The theoretical foundations of those advances have been built by postulating the existence of a variety of different processes and deriving their consequences mathematically or by simulation. The operation of these processes in the real world can be studied through experiment and naturalistic observation. In contrast, archaeologists have an ‘inverse problem’. For them the object of study is the residues of different behaviours represented by the archaeological record and the problem is to infer the microscale processes that produced them, a vital task for cultural evolution since this is the only direct record of past cultural patterns. The situation is analogous to that faced by population geneticists scanning large number of genes and looking for evidence of selection as opposed to drift, but more complicated for many reasons, not least the enormous variety of different forces that affect cultural transmission. This paper reviews the progress that has been made in inferring processes from patterns and the role of demography in those processes, together with the problems that have arisen.

scholarly journals THE CULTURAL EVOLUTION OF ADAPTIVE-TRAIT DIVERSITY WHEN RESOURCES ARE UNCERTAIN AND FINITE

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (01n02) ◽  
pp. 1150013 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK W. LAKE ◽  
ENRICO R. CREMA
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Ideal Free Distribution ◽  
Shared Resource ◽  
Trait Diversity ◽  
Low Diversity ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
High Diversity ◽  
Ideal Free

In this paper, we seek to build on existing mathematical studies of cultural change by exploring how the diversity of adaptive cultural traits evolves by innovation and cultural transmission when the payoff from adopting traits is both uncertain and frequency dependent. The model is particularly aimed at understanding the evolution of subsistence trait diversity, since the payoff from exploiting particular resources is often variable and subject to diminishing returns as a result of overexploitation. We find that traits that exploit the same shared resource evolve most quickly when intermediate rates of cultural transmission promote fluctuation in trait diversity. Higher rates of cultural transmission, which promote predominantly low diversity, and lower rates, which promote predominantly high diversity, both retard the adoption of traits offering higher payoff. We also find that the distribution of traits that exploit independent resources can evolve towards the theoretical Ideal Free Distribution so long as the rate of cultural transmission is low. Increasing the rate of cultural transmission reduces trait diversity, so that a more limited number of "niches" are occupied at any given time.

scholarly journals Not by transmission alone: the role of invention in cultural evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1828) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Perry ◽  
Alecia Carter ◽  
Marco Smolla ◽  
Erol Akçay ◽  
Sabine Nöbel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Four Levels ◽  
New Research

Innovation—the combination of invention and social learning—can empower species to invade new niches via cultural adaptation. Social learning has typically been regarded as the fundamental driver for the emergence of traditions and thus culture. Consequently, invention has been relatively understudied outside the human lineage—despite being the source of new traditions. This neglect leaves basic questions unanswered: what factors promote the creation of new ideas and practices? What affects their spread or loss? We critically review the existing literature, focusing on four levels of investigation: traits (what sorts of behaviours are easiest to invent?), individuals (what factors make some individuals more likely to be inventors?), ecological contexts (what aspects of the environment make invention or transmission more likely?), and populations (what features of relationships and societies promote the rise and spread of new inventions?). We aim to inspire new research by highlighting theoretical and empirical gaps in the study of innovation, focusing primarily on inventions in non-humans. Understanding the role of invention and innovation in the history of life requires a well-developed theoretical framework (which embraces cognitive processes) and a taxonomically broad, cross-species dataset that explicitly investigates inventions and their transmission. We outline such an agenda here. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Foundations of cultural evolution’.

Ritual’s Evolutionary Landscapes

2021 ◽  
pp. 127-144
Author(s):  
Harvey Whitehouse
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
Epigenetic Landscape ◽  
Basic Model ◽  
Different Levels

Understanding the role of ritual in the evolution of social complexity requires attention to many complex, interacting processes operating at different levels. This chapter attempts to sort these out into a coherent overarching framework by building on the ideas of British biologist, philosopher, and polymath C. H. Waddington, who put forward the idea of an ‘epigenetic landscape’ to explain how organisms develop. Waddington’s basic model can be extended to explain how cognitive-developmental and social-historical landscapes unfold and how all three kinds of landscapes interact. Adopting this overarching perspective on cultural evolution helps bridge the unnecessary divisions among branches of evolutionary theory and psychology that emphasize distinct but potentially complementary aspects of social learning and cultural transmission.

scholarly journals The multiple roles of cultural transmission experiments in understanding human cultural evolution

2008 ◽  
Vol 363 (1509) ◽  
pp. 3489-3501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mesoudi ◽  
Andrew Whiten
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Multiple Roles ◽  
Group Method ◽  
Cultural Innovation ◽  
Replacement Method ◽  
Linear Chains ◽  
Adult Humans ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution

In this paper, we explore how experimental studies of cultural transmission in adult humans can address general questions regarding the ‘who, what, when and how’ of human cultural transmission, and consequently inform a theory of human cultural evolution. Three methods are discussed. The transmission chain method, in which information is passed along linear chains of participants, has been used to identify content biases in cultural transmission. These concern the kind of information that is transmitted. Several such candidate content biases have now emerged from the experimental literature. The replacement method, in which participants in groups are gradually replaced or moved across groups, has been used to study phenomena such as cumulative cultural evolution, cultural group selection and cultural innovation. The closed-group method, in which participants learn in groups with no replacement, has been used to explore issues such as who people choose to learn from and when they learn culturally as opposed to individually. A number of the studies reviewed here have received relatively little attention within their own disciplines, but we suggest that these, and future experimental studies of cultural transmission that build on them, can play an important role in a broader science of cultural evolution.

scholarly journals Pursuing Darwin’s curious parallel: Prospects for a science of cultural evolution

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (30) ◽  
pp. 7853-7860 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mesoudi
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Relative Role ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Learning Biases ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Evolutionary Science ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution ◽  
Review Current

In the past few decades, scholars from several disciplines have pursued the curious parallel noted by Darwin between the genetic evolution of species and the cultural evolution of beliefs, skills, knowledge, languages, institutions, and other forms of socially transmitted information. Here, I review current progress in the pursuit of an evolutionary science of culture that is grounded in both biological and evolutionary theory, but also treats culture as more than a proximate mechanism that is directly controlled by genes. Both genetic and cultural evolution can be described as systems of inherited variation that change over time in response to processes such as selection, migration, and drift. Appropriate differences between genetic and cultural change are taken seriously, such as the possibility in the latter of nonrandomly guided variation or transformation, blending inheritance, and one-to-many transmission. The foundation of cultural evolution was laid in the late 20th century with population-genetic style models of cultural microevolution, and the use of phylogenetic methods to reconstruct cultural macroevolution. Since then, there have been major efforts to understand the sociocognitive mechanisms underlying cumulative cultural evolution, the consequences of demography on cultural evolution, the empirical validity of assumed social learning biases, the relative role of transformative and selective processes, and the use of quantitative phylogenetic and multilevel selection models to understand past and present dynamics of society-level change. I conclude by highlighting the interdisciplinary challenges of studying cultural evolution, including its relation to the traditional social sciences and humanities.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document