Uncovering the determinants of the discovery, utilisation and transmission of information through social learning and innovation in young children

通过幼儿的社会学习和创新揭示信息发现、利用和传播的决定因素

• 批准号: ES/J021385/1
• 负责人: Emma Flynn
• 金额: $ 26.01万
• 依托单位: Durham University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2012 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FJ021385%2F1
• 关键词: Uncovering; determinants; discovery; utilisation; transmission

Innovation and social learning are two of the key skills that have allowed humans to inhabit all corners of the world. They underpin 'culture', as social learning facilitates the faithful acquisition and transmission of cultural practices that consist of knowledge that has been built up over generations, while innovation allows adaptations to such behaviours and knowledge so that they become more efficient, a skill essential to survival in a changing environment. Copying another individual's behaviour means one can acquire essential information quickly, as opposed to through a process of trial and error learning, which would mean that no adaptations would survive beyond one's own existence. However, copying others may not always result in optimum behaviour. If all individuals in a population copy those around them then no individual is sampling the environment and establishing whether another behaviour would be more productive; thus, copying alone produces a population which becomes 'stuck'. For behaviours to become more efficient and effective, an individual or a group of individuals must step outside the status quo and make a change to current practice. Thus when faced with a novel task an individual needs to decide whether to attempt the task alone without any other information (asocial learning), to copy another individual or group of individuals (social learning), or to observe others but then to adapt what s/he has witnessed others do (innovation), so that the goal is achieved in the most effective way. Thus individuals must decide on their learning strategy.In this series of studies we propose to understand how a reliance on social learning and/or asocial learning changes in early childhood, and whether any predispositions to learn personally or by watching others is dictated by the context of the learning situation. We propose to take a multidimensional approach that investigates the full context of the learning situation, including the characteristics a child brings to the task (e.g. age, gender, as well as cognitive and social factors), the role of a model's characteristics (e.g., their reported expertise, as well as the effect of seeing more than one model perform an action), and the role of contextual factors, (e.g., the difficulty of the task and social pressure). Theoretically the rate of use of social learning and innovation has been linked to two factors: cooperation and competition. By working together collaboratively we achieve more than working alone, potentially through processes such as faithful copying of successful behaviours, the pedagogical highlighting of important information or the communication and discussion of ideas. Yet, related claims have also been made for the role of competition in innovation; with business analysts suggesting that without competition innovation is lessened and researchers interested in non-human animal behaviour showing that innovation appears in competitive situations. Using an open diffusion design, in which behaviour acquisition and transmission is tracked across groups of individuals, we will look at how the motivations an individual feels (working for oneself or working for one's group) and the nature of the task (a collaborative task versus a task that can be worked independently) affects the production and transmission of socially learnt, or innovative behaviour. Finally, environments are rarely unchanging, and so we incorporate a further dimension into our proposal by exploring the effect of unexpected changes (previously efficient behaviours will no longer work but new behaviours will, and also the level of reward will be inconsistent). Previous work has found that uncertain environments increase reliance on social learning, with individuals being less willing to innovate in times of flux; therefore we consider these findings in the light of cooperative and competitive environments.

创新和社会学习是让人类居住在世界各个角落的两项关键技能。它们是“文化”的基础，因为社会学习有助于忠实地获取和传播由几代人积累的知识组成的文化习俗，而创新则使人们能够适应这些行为和知识，从而提高效率，这是在不断变化的环境中生存所必需的技能。模仿另一个人的行为意味着一个人可以快速获得必要的信息，而不是通过一个试错学习的过程，这意味着没有适应会在一个人自己的存在之外生存。然而，模仿他人并不总是导致最佳行为。如果一个种群中的所有个体都复制周围的个体，那么没有个体会对环境进行采样，并确定另一种行为是否会更有生产力;因此，复制本身会产生一个“卡住”的种群。为了使行为变得更有效率和效力，一个人或一群人必须走出现状，改变目前的做法。因此，当面对一个新的任务时，个体需要决定是否在没有任何其他信息的情况下独自尝试任务（反社会学习），复制另一个人或一组人（社会学习），或者观察他人，然后适应他/她目睹的其他人所做的事情（创新），以便以最有效的方式实现目标。在这一系列的研究中，我们提出要了解依赖于社会学习和/或asocial学习的变化在幼儿期，以及是否有任何倾向，亲自学习或通过观察他人是由学习情境的上下文所决定的。我们建议采取一种多维的方法，调查学习情况的全部背景，包括儿童为任务带来的特征（例如年龄，性别以及认知和社会因素），模型特征的作用（例如，他们报告的专业知识，以及看到多于一个模型执行动作的效果），以及上下文因素的作用，（例如，工作的难度和社会压力）。理论上，社会学习和创新的使用率与两个因素有关：合作和竞争。通过共同合作，我们取得了比单独工作更多的成果，可能通过忠实地复制成功的行为，重要信息的教学突出或思想的交流和讨论等过程。然而，也有人提出了竞争在创新中的作用的相关主张;商业分析家认为，没有竞争，创新就会减少，对非人类动物行为感兴趣的研究人员表明，创新出现在竞争环境中。使用一个开放的扩散设计，在其中行为的获取和传输是跨群体的个人跟踪，我们将看看一个人的动机的感觉（为自己工作或为一个人的组工作）和任务的性质（一个合作的任务与任务，可以独立工作）影响社会学习的生产和传输，或创新行为。最后，环境很少是一成不变的，因此我们通过探索意外变化的影响（以前有效的行为不再有效，但新的行为会，而且奖励水平也不一致），将进一步的维度纳入我们的建议。以前的工作已经发现，不确定的环境增加了对社会学习的依赖，个人不太愿意在流动的时候创新，因此，我们认为这些研究结果的合作和竞争环境。

项目成果

Eureka!: What Is Innovation, How Does It Develop, and Who Does It?

• DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12549
• 发表时间: 2016-09
• 期刊: Child development
• 影响因子: 4.6
• 作者: Carr K;Kendal RL;Flynn EG
• 通讯作者: Flynn EG

Additional Detail of Methods & Raw Data from Testing differential use of payoff-biased social learning strategies in children and chimpanzees

方法的附加细节

• DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.5607385
• 发表时间: 2017
• 作者: Vale G

To Copy or To Innovate? The Role of Personality and Social Networks in Children's Learning Strategies

复制还是创新？

• DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12206
• 发表时间: 2016
• 期刊: Child Development Perspectives
• 影响因子: 6.4
• 作者: Rawlings B

Animal and human innovation: novel problems and novel solutions.

• DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0182
• 发表时间: 2016-03-19
• 期刊: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
• 作者: Reader SM;Morand-Ferron J;Flynn E
• 通讯作者: Flynn E

Selectivity in social and asocial learning: investigating the prevalence, effect and development of young children's learning preferences.

• DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0189
• 发表时间: 2016-03-19
• 期刊: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
• 作者: Flynn E;Turner C;Giraldeau LA
• 通讯作者: Giraldeau LA