Adaptive age-dependent learning in a wild primate population and its effects on cultural evolution

野生灵长类动物种群的适应性年龄依赖性学习及其对文化进化的影响

• 批准号: 1919649
• 负责人: Susan Perry
• 金额: $ 22.34万
• 依托单位: University of California-Los Angeles
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-11-01 至 2023-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1919649&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Adaptive; age; dependent; learning; wild

Compared to other animals, humans have evolved far more complex cultures and much greater reliance on teaching as a means of transmitting information. Scientists debate competing evolutionary explanations for these divergences, and a promising theoretical avenue emphasizes links between these traits and human life history traits: long juvenile periods and lifespans, cooperative childcare, and large relative brain size. In this project, researchers will study age-related changes in how a non-human primate species (capuchins) invents new behaviors and acquires behaviors from others in the wild. Because capuchins have independently evolved a less extreme version of the human life history pattern (e.g., slow development, long lifespans, large brains for body size, and prolonged co-residence with a variety of caregiving relatives), they can generate insights into the role of life history traits in promoting particular types of social learning. This research project will also include a number of training and science education activities. The research team will provide fieldwork opportunities and mentoring, and consequently enhanced prospects for admission to graduate school, to approximately 12 young scientists; involve high school students in data analysis; and make presentations about scientific methods and tropical forest conservation to schools near the research site. Researchers will also collaborate with videographers and with local environmental educators to produce materials to inspire students to study, appreciate, and conserve the highly endangered tropical dry forests.Humans uniquely exhibit cumulative cultural evolution proposed to stem from factors including long juvenile periods that enable learning, intergenerational transmission of knowledge, cooperate care of offspring that further facilitates learning, and theory of mind. Theoretical models, and empirical work in developmental psychology, suggest that the tradeoff between trial-and-error learning and social learning, as well as the tradeoff between creativity and sticking to tried-and-true solutions, shift over the life course. However, in order to test theoretical models used to explain these findings in humans, researchers need non-human primate comparative data about the emergence and spread of new behavioral variants and the effects of population age structure on the social transmission of new ideas. Data will be collected in the Lomas Barbudal Monkey Project, now in its 30th consecutive year. Data on genetic kinship, including grandparent-grandoffspring relationships, are available for ten social groups. Focal animal behavioral sampling will focus on the oldest and youngest animals and will include (besides routine recording of social interactions and object handling) gaze monitoring, infant-alloparent communication, and instances of joint attention to objects. Group scans will document the social network structure. Data from all group members will be used to document flexibility in solving two of the most difficult foraging tasks in the behavioral repertoire, and any behavioral innovations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

与其他动物相比，人类进化出了复杂得多的文化，更多地依赖教学作为传递信息的手段。科学家们争论着对这些差异的相互竞争的进化解释，一种有希望的理论途径强调了这些特征与人类生活史特征之间的联系：较长的青少年时期和寿命，合作育儿，以及较大的相对大脑大小。在这个项目中，研究人员将研究非人类灵长类物种(卷尾猴)如何在野外创造新的行为和从其他物种那里获得行为的年龄相关变化。因为卷尾猴已经独立地进化出人类生活史模式的一个不那么极端的版本(例如，发育缓慢、寿命长、身体大小的大大脑，以及与各种照顾亲属的长期共同居住)，它们可以深入了解生活史特征在促进特定类型的社会学习中的作用。该研究项目还将包括一些培训和科学教育活动。研究小组将为大约12名年轻科学家提供实地考察机会和指导，从而增加进入研究生院的机会；让高中生参与数据分析；并向研究地点附近的学校介绍科学方法和热带雨林保护。研究人员还将与录像师和当地环境教育工作者合作，制作材料，激励学生学习、欣赏和保护高度濒危的热带干旱森林。人类独特地展示了累积的文化进化，这些因素包括能够学习的漫长的青少年时期，代际传播知识，合作照顾进一步促进学习的后代，以及心理理论。理论模型和发展心理学的实证工作表明，反复尝试学习和社交学习之间的权衡，以及创造力和坚持反复尝试的解决方案之间的权衡，在一生中都会发生变化。然而，为了在人类身上测试用于解释这些发现的理论模型，研究人员需要关于新行为变异的出现和传播以及种群年龄结构对新思想社会传播的影响的非人类灵长类动物的比较数据。数据将在洛玛斯巴布达尔猴子项目中收集，该项目现已连续第30年。关于遗传血缘关系的数据，包括祖父母和孙辈之间的关系，有十个社会群体的数据。重点动物行为抽样将集中在年龄最大和最小的动物身上，包括(除了日常记录社会互动和物体处理)凝视监测、婴儿-异地交流，以及联合注意物体的情况。群组扫描将记录社交网络结构。来自所有小组成员的数据将被用来记录在解决行为剧目中最困难的两个觅食任务以及任何行为创新方面的灵活性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

The Importance of Representative Sampling for Home Range Estimation in Field Primatology

• DOI: 10.1007/s10764-023-00398-z
• 发表时间: 2023-10
• 期刊: International Journal of Primatology
• 影响因子: 2.5
• 作者: Odd T. Jacobson;Margaret C. Crofoot;Susan E Perry;Kosmas Hench;Brendan J. Barrett;Genevieve E. Finerty

Do white-faced capuchin monkeys have social norms?: New data from the Lomas Barbudal Monkey Project in Costa Rica. In: Program of the 92nd Annual Meeting of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists.

白脸卷尾猴有社会规范吗？：来自哥斯达黎加洛马斯巴布达猴项目的新数据。

• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: American journal of biological anthropology
• 作者: Perry, Susan

The development of sex differences in play in wild white‐faced capuchins ( Cebus capucinus )

野生白脸卷尾猴 (Cebus capucinus) 玩耍中性别差异的发展

• DOI: 10.1002/ajp.23434
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: American Journal of Primatology
• 影响因子: 2.4
• 作者: Winkler, Sasha L.;Perry, Susan E.
• 通讯作者: Perry, Susan E.