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dc.contributor.authorvan der Post, Daniel J.
dc.contributor.authorFranz, Mathias
dc.contributor.authorLaland, Kevin N.
dc.date.accessioned2017-02-13T17:30:12Z
dc.date.available2017-02-13T17:30:12Z
dc.date.issued2017-02-10
dc.identifier.citationvan der Post , D J , Franz , M & Laland , K N 2017 , ' The evolution of social learning mechanisms and cultural phenomena in group foragers ' , BMC Evolutionary Biology , vol. 17 , 49 . https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-017-0889-zen
dc.identifier.issn1471-2148
dc.identifier.otherPURE: 249144091
dc.identifier.otherPURE UUID: 1fc49c16-81df-4d1a-b8bb-38220bbe1b9e
dc.identifier.otherRIS: van der Post2017
dc.identifier.otherScopus: 85012106584
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0002-2457-0900/work/60630424
dc.identifier.otherWOS: 000397334000002
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10023/10283
dc.descriptionThis research was supported by a grant from The John Templeton Foundation.en
dc.description.abstractBackground:  Advanced cognitive abilities are widely thought to underpin cultural traditions and cumulative cultural change. In contrast, recent simulation models have found that basic social influences on learning suffice to support both cultural phenomena. In the present study we test the predictions of these models in the context of skill learning, in a model with stochastic demographics, variable group sizes, and evolved parameter values, exploring the cultural ramifications of three different social learning mechanisms. Results:  Our results show that that simple forms of social learning such as local enhancement, can generate traditional differences in the context of skill learning. In contrast, we find cumulative cultural change is supported by observational learning, but not local or stimulus enhancement, which supports the idea that advanced cognitive abilities are important for generating this cultural phenomenon in the context of skill learning. Conclusions:   Our results help to explain the observation that animal cultures are widespread, but cumulative cultural change might be rare.
dc.format.extent15
dc.language.isoeng
dc.relation.ispartofBMC Evolutionary Biologyen
dc.rights© The Author(s). 2017 Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.en
dc.subjectMulti-scale approachen
dc.subjectAgent-based modelen
dc.subjectMechanism specificityen
dc.subjectTraditionsen
dc.subjectCumulative cultureen
dc.subjectSelf-organizationen
dc.subjectQH301 Biologyen
dc.subjectBF Psychologyen
dc.subjectDASen
dc.subject.lccQH301en
dc.subject.lccBFen
dc.titleThe evolution of social learning mechanisms and cultural phenomena in group foragersen
dc.typeJournal articleen
dc.description.versionPublisher PDFen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. Centre for Social Learning & Cognitive Evolutionen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. School of Biologyen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. Scottish Oceans Instituteen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. Institute of Behavioural and Neural Sciencesen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. Centre for Biological Diversityen
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-017-0889-z
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden


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