Human cumulative culture in the laboratory: Effects of (micro) population size |
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Authors: | Christine A Caldwell and Ailsa E Millen |
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Institution: | (1) Centre for Social Learning & Cognitive Evolution and Scottish Primate Research Group, School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland |
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Abstract: | Traditionally, experiments on social learning (in both humans and nonhumans) involve dyads, with an experimenter or experimenter-trained
conspecific serving as the demonstrator and the participant as the observer. But social learning in nature often involves
multiple potential models, and the models themselves were once learners. We discuss our studies of social learning by adult
humans in interactive group settings in the absence of formal demonstrations by experimenters, which tracked transmission
over multiple learner generations. In these experiments, we found evidence for cumulative learning over generations. This
has allowed us to manipulate learning conditions in order to test hypotheses regarding the necessary conditions for cumulative
culture. We also report results from a further experiment using similar methods, which compared conditions of varying cohort
size. Participants were given the task to build a paper airplane to fly as far as possible. Contrary to expectations, there
was no advantage for larger cohort sizes, in terms of the cumulative effects observed. |
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Keywords: | |
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