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

与其他动物相比，人类已经进化出了复杂得多的文化，也更加依赖教学作为传递信息的手段。科学家们就这些差异的进化解释展开了辩论，一个很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：漫长的幼年期和寿命，合作育儿，以及相对较大的脑容量。在这个项目中，研究人员将研究非人类灵长类动物（卷尾猴）在野外如何发明新行为并从其他动物那里获得行为的年龄相关变化。因为卷尾猴独立地进化出了一种不那么极端的人类生活史模式（例如，发育缓慢，寿命长，相对于身体大小的大脑较大，以及与各种照顾它们的亲属长期共同居住），它们可以对生活史特征在促进特定类型的社会学习中的作用产生深刻的见解。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，从而提高他们进入研究生院的前景；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森林保护。研究人员还将与摄像师和当地环境教育工作者合作，制作材料，鼓励学生研究、欣赏和保护高度濒危的热带干燥森林。人类独特地表现出累积的文化进化，这种文化进化被认为源于多种因素，包括使学习成为可能的漫长少年时期、知识的代际传播、进一步促进学习的合作照顾后代以及心理理论。发展心理学的理论模型和实证研究表明，试错学习和社会学习之间的权衡，以及创造力和坚持可靠的解决方案之间的权衡，在整个生命过程中都会发生变化。然而，为了验证用于解释这些发现的理论模型，研究人员需要非人类灵长类动物的比较数据，以了解新行为变异的出现和传播，以及人口年龄结构对新思想社会传播的影响。数据将在洛马斯巴布达尔猴子项目中收集，该项目已连续30年开展。关于遗传亲缘关系的数据，包括祖父母与祖父母之间的关系，可用于10个社会群体。焦点动物行为采样将集中在最老和最年轻的动物身上，并将包括（除了常规的社会互动和物体处理记录）凝视监测，婴儿-异源父母交流，以及共同注意物体的实例。群体扫描将记录社会网络结构。来自所有小组成员的数据将被用来记录解决行为库中两个最困难的觅食任务的灵活性，以及任何行为创新。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.