Social Learning: Evolution, Ecology and Mechanisms

从鸟类的筑巢地点选择到人类的教学，社会学习，即向他人学习，已被证明对许多物种的个体成功至关重要。通过利用其他动物的发现，动物可以迅速适应不断变化的环境，而不需要个体探索的成本和风险。这可以使个人利用新的机会，进入新的栖息地，以及适应人类影响的环境。事实上，一些有影响力但基本上未经验证的假设表明，社会学习可以影响许多生态和进化过程。然而，我们对社会学习如何进化或其潜在的神经处理知之甚少。例如，社会学习是否典型地依赖于可以独立于其他学习过程而发展和进化的专门的、专门的认知过程，或者社会学习是否仅仅是个人学习过程的一种表达，目前仍未得到解决。这是一个重要的差距，因为答案将决定社会学习的分类分布和它有利的环境。

Social learning, learning from others, has been demonstrated to be important to individual success in many species, ranging from nest-site selection in birds to teaching in humans. By taking advantage of the discoveries of others, animals can rapidly adjust to changing environments, without the costs and risks of individual exploration. This can allow individuals to exploit new opportunities and enter new habitats, as well as adapt to human-impacted environments. Indeed, influential but largely untested hypotheses have suggested that social learning can impact many ecological and evolutionary processes. However, we know little about how social learning evolves or its underlying neural processing. For example, it remains unresolved whether social learning typically rests upon dedicated, specialized cognitive processes that can develop and evolve independently from other learning processes, or if instead social learning is simply an expression of the processes that underlie individual learning. This is a significant gap, because the answer will determine both the taxonomic distribution of social learning and the circumstances under which it is advantageous.