Leveling the playing field in studying cumulative cultural evolution: Conceptual and methodological advances in nonhuman animal research.
Leveling the playing field in studying cumulative cultural evolution: Conceptual and methodological advances in nonhuman animal research.
复制标题
研究累积文化进化的公平竞争环境：非人类动物研究的概念和方法论进展。
DOI：
10.1037/xan0000303
复制
发表时间：
2021
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Vale, Gillian L.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Rawlings, Bruce S.;Legare, Cristine H.;Brosnan, Sarah F.;Vale, Gillian L.
累积文化进化(CCE)，即通过社会传递而世代改善文化特征，被广泛认为是人类独有的。建立在他人知识、技术和技能基础上的能力已经产生了动物王国中最多样化和最复杂的技术剧目。然而，用于确定CCE的定义和标准以及用于跨研究检查CCE的方法的不一致可能会阻碍我们确定哪些方面是人类独有的。关于如何定义和衡量改进，以及某些标准是否可在经验上检验的问题，越来越受到该领域的关注。在这篇文章中，我们从概念和方法论的角度批判性地评估在该领域取得的进展和当前的争论点。我们讨论了定义的不一致如何损害我们向非人类动物记录CCE的潜在证据的能力。我们在Mesoudi和Thornton(2018)最近描述的核心和扩展的CCE标准的基础上，从比较的角度就哪些标准应该用作CCE的证据提出了具体的建议。我们使用这些建议评估了野生和圈养非人类动物研究的现有数据。最后，我们讨论了研究非人类动物，特别是非人类灵长类动物的CCE的研究人员目前面临的问题，并提供了可能克服这些担忧并推动该领域向前发展的建议。
Cumulative cultural evolution (CCE), the improvement of cultural traits over generations via social transmission, is widely believed to be unique to humans. The capacity to build upon others’ knowledge, technologies, and skills has produced the most diverse and sophisticated technological repertoire in the animal kingdom. Yet, inconsistency in both the definitions and criteria used to determine CCE and the methodology used to examine it across studies may be hindering our ability to determine which aspects are unique to humans. Issues regarding how improvement is defined and measured and whether some criteria are empirically testable are of increasing concern to the field. In this article, we critically assess the progress made in the field and current points of debate from conceptual and methodological perspectives. We discuss how inconsistency in definitions is detrimental to our ability to document potential evidence of CCE to nonhuman animals. We build on Mesoudi and Thornton’s (2018) recently described core and extended CCE criteria to make specific recommendations about, from a comparative lens, which criteria should be used as evidence of CCE. We evaluate existing data from both wild and captive studies of nonhuman animals using these suggestions. We finish by discussing issues currently faced by researchers studying CCE in nonhuman animals, particularly nonhuman primates, and provide suggestions that may overcome these concerns and move the field forward.(PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)