Social enhancement can create adaptive, arbitrary and maladaptive cultural traditions
Social enhancement can create adaptive, arbitrary and maladaptive cultural traditions
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DOI：
10.1098/rspb.2010.0705
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发表时间：
2010-11-07
影响因子：
4.7
通讯作者：
Matthews, Luke J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Franz, Mathias;Matthews, Luke J.
许多动物都知道社会学习，即它们能够通过使用其他个体的信息来获得新的行为。研究人员区分了许多不同的社会学习机制，如模仿和社会增强。社会增强是一种简单的社会学习形式，在动物中最普遍。然而，与模仿不同的是，社会增强是否能创造文化传统是有争议的。基于最近对卷尾猴的研究，我们开发了一个基于代理的模型来检验以下假设：（i）社会增强可以创造和维持稳定的传统;（ii）社会增强可以创造文化整合。我们的研究结果支持这两种假设。导致文化一致性和传统形成的一个关键因素是个人强化和社会强化学习的反复互动。这一结果强调，文化整合的出现并不一定需要复杂的认知机制，如“复制大多数”或群体规范。此外，我们观察到，社会增强可以创建学习动态类似于“不确定时复制”的学习策略。其他分析的结果也指出，应该有利于学习机制的演变比社会增强更复杂的情况。
Many animals are known to learn socially, i.e. they are able to acquire new behaviours by using information from other individuals. Researchers distinguish between a number of different social-learning mechanisms such as imitation and social enhancement. Social enhancement is a simple form of social learning that is among the most widespread in animals. However, unlike imitation, it is debated whether social enhancement can create cultural traditions. Based on a recent study on capuchin monkeys, we developed an agent-based model to test the hypotheses that (i) social enhancement can create and maintain stable traditions and (ii) social enhancement can create cultural conformity. Our results supported both hypotheses. A key factor that led to the creation of cultural conformity and traditions was the repeated interaction of individual reinforcement and social enhancement learning. This result emphasizes that the emergence of cultural conformity does not necessarily require cognitively complex mechanisms such as 'copying the majority' or group norms. In addition, we observed that social enhancement can create learning dynamics similar to a 'copy when uncertain' learning strategy. Results from additional analyses also point to situations that should favour the evolution of learning mechanisms more sophisticated than social enhancement.