scholarly journals Individual differences in learning behaviours in humans: Asocial exploration tendency does not predict reliance on social learning

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wataru Toyokawa ◽  
Yoshimatsu Saito ◽  
Tatsuya Kameda
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Exploration Exploitation

AbstractA number of empirical studies have suggested that individual differences in asocial exploration tendencies in animals may be related to those in social information use. However, because the ‘exploration tendency’ in most previous studies has been measured without considering the exploration-exploitation trade-off, it is yet hard to conclude that the animal asocial ‘exploration-exploitation’ tendency may be tied to social information use. Here, we studied human learning behaviour in both asocial and social multi-armed bandit tasks. By fitting reinforcement learning models including asocial and/or social decision processes, we measured each individual’s (1) asocial exploration tendency and (2) social information use. We found consistent individual differences in the exploration tendency in the asocial tasks. We also found substantive heterogeneity in the adopted learning strategies in the social task: One-third of participants were most likely to have used the copy-when-uncertain strategy, while the remaining two-thirds were most likely to have relied only on asocial learning. However, we found no significant individual association between the exploration frequency in the asocial task and the use of the social learning strategy in the social task. Our results suggest that the social learning strategies may be independent from the asocial search strategies in humans.

scholarly journals Reproductive skew affects social information use

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 182084 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Smolla ◽  
Charlotte Rosher ◽  
R. Tucker Gilman ◽  
Susanne Shultz
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Reproductive Skew ◽  
The Other ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Social Information Use

Individuals vary in their propensity to use social learning, the engine of cultural evolution, to acquire information about their environment. The causes of those differences, however, remain largely unclear. Using an agent-based model, we tested the hypothesis that as a result of reproductive skew differences in energetic requirements for reproduction affect the value of social information. We found that social learning is associated with lower variance in yield and is more likely to evolve in risk-averse low-skew populations than in high-skew populations. Reproductive skew may also result in sex differences in social information use, as empirical data suggest that females are often more risk-averse than males. To explore how risk may affect sex differences in learning strategies, we simulated learning in sexually reproducing populations where one sex experiences more reproductive skew than the other. When both sexes compete for the same resources, they tend to adopt extreme strategies: the sex with greater reproductive skew approaches pure individual learning and the other approaches pure social learning. These results provide insight into the conditions that promote individual and species level variation in social learning and so may affect cultural evolution.

scholarly journals Reproductive skew affects social information use

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Smolla ◽  
Charlotte Rosher ◽  
R. Tucker Gilman ◽  
Susanne Shultz
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Reproductive Skew ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Simulated Learning ◽  
Social Information Use

Individuals vary in their propensity to use social learning, the engine of cultural evolution, to acquire information about their environment. The causes of those differences, however, remain largely unclear. Individuals that experience high reproductive skew are expected to favour high-risk strategies, whereas those that experience low reproductive skew are expected to favour risk-averse strategies. Using an agent-based model, we tested the hypothesis that differences in energetic requirements for reproduction affect the value of social information. We found that social learning is associated with lower variance in yield and is more likely to evolve in risk-averse low-skew populations than in high-skew populations. Reproductive skew may also result in sex differences in social information use, as females tend to be more risk averse than males. To explore how risk may affect sex differences in learning strategies, we simulated learning in sexually reproducing populations. Where both sexes share the same environment they adopt more extreme learning strategies, approaching pure individual or social learning. These results provide insight into the conditions that promote individual and species level variation in social learning and so may affect cultural evolution.

scholarly journals Higher frequency of social learning in China than in the West shows cultural variation in the dynamics of cultural evolution

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1798) ◽  
pp. 20142209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mesoudi ◽  
Lei Chang ◽  
Keelin Murray ◽  
Hui Jing Lu
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Successive Generations ◽  
British People

Cultural evolutionary models have identified a range of conditions under which social learning (copying others) is predicted to be adaptive relative to asocial learning (learning on one's own), particularly in humans where socially learned information can accumulate over successive generations. However, cultural evolution and behavioural economics experiments have consistently shown apparently maladaptive under-utilization of social information in Western populations. Here we provide experimental evidence of cultural variation in people's use of social learning, potentially explaining this mismatch. People in mainland China showed significantly more social learning than British people in an artefact-design task designed to assess the adaptiveness of social information use. People in Hong Kong, and Chinese immigrants in the UK, resembled British people in their social information use, suggesting a recent shift in these groups from social to asocial learning due to exposure to Western culture. Finally, Chinese mainland participants responded less than other participants to increased environmental change within the task. Our results suggest that learning strategies in humans are culturally variable and not genetically fixed, necessitating the study of the ‘social learning of social learning strategies' whereby the dynamics of cultural evolution are responsive to social processes, such as migration, education and globalization.

scholarly journals Social information use in adolescents: the impact of adults, peers and household composition

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Molleman ◽  
Patricia Kanngiesser ◽  
Wouter van den Bos
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Household Composition ◽  
Estimation Task ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Simple Estimation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

Social learning strategies are key for making adaptive decisions, but their ontogeny remains poorly understood. The authors investigate how social information use depends on its source (adults vs. peer), and how it is shaped by adolescents’ household composition (extended vs. nuclear), a factor known to modulate social development. Using a simple estimation task, we show that social information strongly impacts adolescents’ (N=256) behaviour, especially when its source is an adult. However, social information use does not depend on household composition: the relative impact of adults and peers was similar in adolescents from both household types. Furthermore, adolescents were found to directly copy others’ estimates surprisingly frequently. This study provides novel insights into adolescents’ social information use and contributes to understanding the ontogeny of social learning strategies.

scholarly journals Individual consistency and flexibility in human social information use

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1776) ◽  
pp. 20132864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulf Toelch ◽  
Matthew J. Bruce ◽  
Lesley Newson ◽  
Peter J. Richerson ◽  
Simon M. Reader
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Computer Games ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Individual Consistency

Copying others appears to be a cost-effective way of obtaining adaptive information, particularly when flexibly employed. However, adult humans differ considerably in their propensity to use information from others, even when this ‘social information’ is beneficial, raising the possibility that stable individual differences constrain flexibility in social information use. We used two dissimilar decision-making computer games to investigate whether individuals flexibly adjusted their use of social information to current conditions or whether they valued social information similarly in both games. Participants also completed established personality questionnaires. We found that participants demonstrated considerable flexibility, adjusting social information use to current conditions. In particular, individuals employed a ‘copy-when-uncertain’ social learning strategy, supporting a core, but untested, assumption of influential theoretical models of cultural transmission. Moreover, participants adjusted the amount invested in their decision based on the perceived reliability of personally gathered information combined with the available social information. However, despite this strategic flexibility, participants also exhibited consistent individual differences in their propensities to use and value social information. Moreover, individuals who favoured social information self-reported as more collectivist than others. We discuss the implications of our results for social information use and cultural transmission.

scholarly journals Social learning strategies and predation risk: minnows copy only when using private information would be costly

2008 ◽  
Vol 275 (1653) ◽  
pp. 2869-2876 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.M Webster ◽  
K.N Laland
Keyword(s):  
Predation Risk ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Private Information ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Costly Information ◽  
Information Hypothesis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Learning From Others ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

Animals can acquire information from the environment privately, by sampling it directly, or socially, through learning from others. Generally, private information is more accurate, but expensive to acquire, while social information is cheaper but less reliable. Accordingly, the ‘costly information hypothesis’ predicts that individuals will use private information when the costs associated with doing so are low, but that they should increasingly use social information as the costs of using private information rise. While consistent with considerable data, this theory has yet to be directly tested in a satisfactory manner. We tested this hypothesis by giving minnows ( Phoxinus phoxinus ) a choice between socially demonstrated and non-demonstrated prey patches under conditions of low, indirect and high simulated predation risk. Subjects had no experience (experiment 1) or prior private information that conflicted with the social information provided by the demonstrators (experiment 2). In both experiments, subjects spent more time in the demonstrated patch than in the non-demonstrated patch, and in experiment 1 made fewer switches between patches, when risk was high compared with when it was low. These findings are consistent with the predictions of the costly information hypothesis, and imply that minnows adopt a ‘copy-when-asocial-learning-is-costly’ learning strategy.

scholarly journals Pre- and post-natal stress have opposing effects on social information use

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 20121088 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neeltje J. Boogert ◽  
Cedric Zimmer ◽  
Karen A. Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Social Foraging ◽  
Short Term Exposure ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Food Conditions ◽  
Opposing Effects ◽  
Developmental Conditions

Theoretical models of social learning predict that animals should copy others in variable environments where resource availability is relatively unpredictable. Although short-term exposure to unpredictable conditions in adulthood has been shown to encourage social learning, virtually nothing is known concerning whether and how developmental conditions affect social information use. Unpredictable food availability increases levels of the stress hormone corticosterone (CORT). In birds, CORT can be transferred from the mother to her eggs, and have downstream behavioural effects. We tested how pre-natal CORT elevation through egg injection, and chick post-natal development in unpredictable food conditions, affected social information use in adult Japanese quail ( Coturnix japonica ). Pre-natal CORT exposure encouraged quail to copy the foraging decisions of demonstrators in video playbacks, whereas post-natal food unpredictability led individuals to avoid the demonstrated food source. An individual's exposure to stress and uncertainty during development can thus affect its use of social foraging information in adulthood. However, the stressor's nature and developmental timing determine whether an adult will tend to copy conspecifics or do the opposite. Developmental effects on social information use might thus help explain individual differences in social foraging tactics and leadership.

scholarly journals Chimpanzees demonstrate individual differences in social information use

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 639-650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart K. Watson ◽  
Gillian L. Vale ◽  
Lydia M. Hopper ◽  
Lewis G. Dean ◽  
Rachel L. Kendal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Social Information Use

scholarly journals Individual Differences in Intelligence and Personality Guide Human Social Learning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Fay ◽  
Gilles E Gignac ◽  
Bradley Walker
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Openness To Experience ◽  
Alternative Solution ◽  
General Intelligence ◽  
The Social ◽  
Egocentric Bias ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

Little is known about the extent to which individual differences guide social learning. Here we use individual differences in intelligence and personality, specifically openness to experience, to predict the social learning strategies people use. Participants (N = 220) completed a range of general intelligence tests, a personality questionnaire, and a battery of novel behavioral tasks. In each behavioral task participants were trained on the solution to a problem. They were then informed of an alternative solution to the same problem that varied in terms of its quality, simulating new social information. The extent to which participants switched to a superior solution measured content-biased social learning, and the extent to which they retained the trained solution, when presented with an alternative solution of equal or higher quality, measured egocentric bias. As predicted by cultural evolutionary theory, most participants exhibited content-biased social learning. However, a significant minority (20-40%) exhibited an egocentric bias, preferring to retain the familiar, but often suboptimal, trained solution. Higher general intelligence was associated with general solution switching but was more strongly related to switching to a superior solution. So, higher general intelligence predicted content-biased social learning. By contrast, higher openness to experience, and therefore lower egocentric bias, was uniquely associated with switching to an inferior solution. So, egocentric bias (or lower openness to experience) was adaptive as it inhibited participants from switching to a maladaptive solution. Our findings highlight the importance of individual differences in intelligence and personality to human social learning.

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