Social learning in humans and other animals

Abstract

Decisions made by individuals can be influenced by what others think and do. Social learning includes a wide array of behaviors such as imitation, observational learning of novel foraging techniques, peer or parental influences on individual preferences, as well as outright teaching. These processes are believed to underlie an important part of cultural variation among human populations and may also explain intraspecific variation in behavior between geographically distinct populations of animals. Recent neurobiological studies have begun to uncover the neural basis of social learning. Here we review experimental evidence from the past few decades showing that social learning is a widespread set of skills present in multiple animal species. In mammals, the temporoparietal junction, the dorsomedial, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, as well as the anterior cingulate gyrus, appear to play critical roles in social learning. Birds, fish, and insects also learn from others, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. We discuss the evolutionary implications of these findings and highlight the importance of emerging animal models that permit precise modification of neural circuit function for elucidating the neural basis of social learning.

Vicarious Reinforcement Learning Signals When Instructing Others

“…Previous studies have shown that activity in the VmPFC, the insula, the posterior portions of the superior temporal sulcus, the paracingulate cortex, and the temporal poles covaries with parameters from RL-based computational models during other forms of social interactions (Ramnani and Miall, 2004;Behrens et al, 2008;Hampton et al, 2008;Baumgartner et al, 2009;Klucharev et al, 2009;Cooper et al, 2014;Gariépy et al, 2014). Thus, input from areas that appear to process information in a manner that conforms to the principles of RL during social interactions and the input from midbrain dopaminergic nuclei both highlight the ACCg as a candidate for processing PE signals relating to the behavior of others.…”

Partial Adaptation of Obtained and Observed Value Signals Preserves Information about Gains and Losses

“…We used a social version of the 2-armed bandit task (Fig. 1A) which alternated between gain and loss blocks (Burke et al, 2010). In gain blocks, the available outcomes for both a confederate and the participant were 10 points and 0 points, whereas in loss blocks the available outcomes were 0 and Ϫ10 points.…”

“…By contrast, if the same animal finds itself in an environment with less nutritious but potentially poisonous food, it may rescale value processing and maximize sensitivity for poison content. Such a context-based rescaling of value is efficient because it uses a common neural circuitry to assign motivational value in different contexts, and has been documented in various outcome processing structures of the brain (Tremblay and Schultz, 1999;Breiter et al, 2001;Akitsuki et al, 2003;Tobler et al, 2005;Nieuwenhuis et al, 2005;Elliott et al, 2008;Fujiwara et al, 2009;Kobayashi et al, 2010).…”

Ecology of information: social transmission dynamics within groups of non-social insects

“…how they learn socially from other animals to perform fundamental biological functions. Much of the existing research on social learning (usually defined as 'learning that is influenced by observation of, or interaction with, another animal or its products' [1]) has addressed its underlying neural structures, or investigated its genetic, physiological and behavioural bases [2][3][4][5]. In behavioural ecology, social learning is often studied from an individualto-group perspective.…”