Animal cultures: how we've only seen the tip of the iceberg

Abstract

Abstract

A deeper and distributed search for culture

“…Veissière et al state that "it is precisely because of the existence of inter group behavioural and cognitive variations that arise through social learning … that we can speak of culture"but surely not: certainly Henrich's definition does not require this. A universal behaviour would still be cultural, if routinely acquired by social learning from others (Schuppli & van Schaik 2019).…”

Importance of the “thinking through other minds” process explored through motor correlates of motivated social interactions

“…Whiten and van de Waal (2018) distinguish three main phases of cultural acquisition in primates: first, juveniles learn much about foraging and other activities from their mother, whom they may accompany closely for years; in a second phase learning expands to a wider social circle, when young males may apprentice themselves to adult males who exploit a somewhat different cultural foraging niche than their mothers; and finally, in a third phase dispersing individuals learn from individuals in their new group who are already informed about local resources and group dynamics. Schuppli and van Schaik (2019) and Whiten (2019a;2019b;2019c) infer from records of juvenile orangutans' close peering at adult activities that the number of behaviours so learned may exceed 190. "It seems that immatures learn virtually all of their skills socially," they conclude (p. 5).…”

Population turnover facilitates cultural selection for efficiency

“…This model allows for variation of the four following learning parameters within each agent: • τ : Conservatism (insensitivity to differences in payoffs). Values ranged: mean ranged from [1,3] at increments of 0.2.…”

“…Beyond genes, culture offers a secondary inheritance system that provides an alternative pathway to adaptive plasticity [1,2]. Culture, here defined as socially transmitted information and behaviors that are shared in groups and persist over time, is increasingly accepted to occur across wide range of taxa and behavioral domains [3]. While persistent, cultural traits are not necessarily static, and can change in frequency and type in response to selective pressures.…”