| 1. |
- Enquist, Magnus, 1955-, et al.
(författare)
-
Modelling the evolution and diversity of cumulative culture
- 2011
-
Ingår i: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 0962-8436 .- 1471-2970. ; 366:1563, s. 412-423
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Previous work on mathematical models of cultural evolution has mainly focused on the diffusion of simple cultural elements. However, a characteristic feature of human cultural evolution is the seemingly limitless appearance of new and increasingly complex cultural elements. Here, we develop a general modelling framework to study such cumulative processes, in which we assume that the appearance and disappearance of cultural elements are stochastic events that depend on the current state of culture. Five scenarios are explored: evolution of independent cultural elements, stepwise modification of elements, differentiation or combination of elements and systems of cultural elements. As one application of our framework, we study the evolution of cultural diversity (in time as well as between groups).
|
|
| 2. |
- Enquist, Magnus, et al.
(författare)
-
Critical Social Learning : A Solution to Rogers's Paradox of Nonadaptive Culture
- 2007
-
Ingår i: American Anthropologist. - : Wiley. - 0002-7294 .- 1548-1433. ; 109:4, s. 727-734
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Alan Rogers (1988) presented a game theory model of the evolution of social learning, yielding the paradoxical conclusion that social learning does not increase the fitness of a population. We expand on this model, allowing for imperfections in individual and social learning as well as incorporating a "critical social learning" strategy that tries to solve an adaptive problem first by social learning, and then by individual learning if socially acquired behavior proves unsatisfactory. This strategy always proves superior to pure social learning and typically has higher fitness than pure individual learning, providing a solution to Rogers's paradox of nonadaptive culture. Critical social learning is an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) unless cultural transmission is highly unfaithful, the environment is highly variable, or social learning is much more costly than individual learning. We compare the model to empirical data on social learning and on spatial variation in primate cultures and list three requirements for adaptive culture. © 2007 by the American Anthropological Association.
|
|
| 3. |
- Eriksson, Kimmo, et al.
(författare)
-
Critical points in current theory of conformist social learning
- 2007
-
Ingår i: Journal of Evolutionary Psychology. - 0737-4828. ; 5:1, s. 67-87
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Existing mathematical models suggest that gene-culture coevolution favours a conformist bias in social learning, that is, a psychological mechanism to preferentially acquire the most common cultural variants. Here we show that this conclusion relies on specific assumptions that seem unrealistic, such as that all cultural variants are known to every individual. We present two models that remove these assumptions, showing that: 1) the rate of cultural evolution and the adaptive value of culture are higher in a population in which individuals pick cultural variants at random ( Random strategy) rather than picking the most common one ( Conform strategy); 2) in genetic evolution the Random strategy out-competes the Conform strategy, unless cultural evolution is very slow, in which caseConform and Random usually coexist; 3) the individuals’ ability to evaluate cultural variants is a more important determinant of the adaptive value of culture than frequency-based choice strategies. We also review existing empirical literature and game-theoretic arguments for conformity, finding neither strong empirical evidence nor a strong theoretical expectation for a general conformist bias. Our own vignette study of social learning shows that people may indeed use different social learning strategies depending on context.
|
|
