Exploring the Emergence of Organized Colouration in Paintings Through Cultural Transmission.

Culture pervades human life and is at the origin of the success of our species. A wide range of other animals have culture too, but often in a limited form that does not complexify through the gradual accumulation of innovations. We developed a new paradigm to study cultural evolution in primates in order to better evaluate our closest relatives' cultural capacities. Previous studies using transmission chain experimental paradigms, in which the behavioural output of one individual becomes the target behaviour for the next individual in the chain, show that cultural transmission can lead to the progressive emergence of systematically structured behaviours in humans. Inspired by this work, we combined a pattern reproduction task on touch screens with an iterated learning procedure to develop transmission chains of baboons (Papio papio). Using this procedure, we show that baboons can exhibit three fundamental aspects of human cultural evolution: a progressive increase in performance, the emergence of systematic structure and the presence of lineage specificity. Our results shed new light on human uniqueness: we share with our closest relatives essential capacities to produce human-like cultural evolution.

Recent accounts of autistic perception, including Bayesian accounts, hypothesize a reduced influence of prior knowledge on perception across different domains in the autism spectrum (AS). The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of prior linguistic knowledge, in the form of phonemic categorical knowledge, on speech perception in adults with AS condition. As phonemic categorical knowledge is shaped by language experience and abilities, we furthermore distinguished AS participants with (AS-SOD) or without a history of speech onset delay (AS-noSOD); the control group comprises typical individuals matched for age, nonverbal intelligence, and reading abilities. We also controlled for the influence of auditory-verbal short-term retention capacities by administering word list and nonword list repetition tasks. We did not observe any reduced influence of prior phonemic knowledge on the perception of speech stimuli nor did we observed any increased perceptual abilities for atypical variants of speech stimuli or nonspeech auditory stimuli, either between the two autistic groups or relative to the control group. Short-term memory abilities appeared to be superior in the AS-noSOD group relative to the AS-SOD and control groups, but this strength could be accounted for by their higher vocabulary knowledge. The preservation of categorical perception in verbal autistic adults observed in this study challenges models claiming a reduced influence of prior knowledge on perception across domains in the AS. Autism Res 2019. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: A reduced influence of prior knowledge has been considered to characterize perceptual abilities in people with autism. In this article, we examine this claim by assessing nonlinguistic and linguistic auditory perception abilities in adults with autism, and by further distinguishing between autism with or without a history of delayed language development. We did not observe any reduced influence of prior language knowledge on the perception of speech stimuli nor did we observe any increased perceptual abilities for atypical variants of speech stimuli or nonspeech auditory stimuli, and this relative to a control group matched on age, nonverbal intellectual efficiency, and reading abilities. Our results challenge models claiming a reduced influence of prior knowledge on perception across domains in the AS.

In cultural transmission, information flows from ‘producers’ to ‘receivers’. Transmission biases such as content-, model- and frequency-based biases, which modulate the adoption of cultural traits by receivers, have been explored in depth. We focus instead on a bias on production and compare transmission fidelity when producers either intend to teach or intend to reproduce socially acquired information. Eighty participants were asked to read a story and reproduce it either in order to ‘teach it to someone else’ or just ‘recall it as accurately as possible’. In order to test whether differences in fidelity between these two tasks were related to information encoding (during reading) or to reproduction, we also manipulated the timing of instructions: Half of the participants were informed of the task (Teach or Recall) Before reding the story and the other half, After reading the story. Participants were arranged in 20 transmission chains of 4 generations. The first generation in each chain read a text about the environment (from Mesoudi et al., 2006), and subsequent generations read the previous participant’s output story. We measured two aspect of fidelity: Quantity and Accuracy of information retained over generations. We found that being informed of the task Before reading the story led to higher Accuracy and Quantity than being informed After reading. Surprisingly, Teaching yielded lower Accuracy than Recall, but both resulted in similar Quantity retained. Additional analyses revealed differences in the content of the information under Teaching and Recall. We conclude that aspects of cultural transmission pertaining to production, in particular, intention to teach vs reproduce, influence transmission dynamics and therefore need to be integrated in models of cultural evolution. Reference Mesoudi, A., Whiten, A., & Dunbar, R. (2006). A bias for social information in human cultural transmission. British Journal of Psychology, 97(3), 405–423.

Prior knowledge activation facilitates learning. Note taking during prior knowledge activation (i.e., note taking directed at retrieving information from memory) might facilitate the activation process by enabling learners to build an external representation of their prior knowledge. However, taking notes might be less effective in supporting prior knowledge activation if available prior knowledge is limited. This study investigates the effects of the retrieval-directed function of note taking depending on learners' level of prior knowledge. It is hypothesized that the effectiveness of note taking is influenced by the amount of prior knowledge learners already possess. Sixty-one high school students participated in this study. A prior knowledge test was used to ascertain differences in level of prior knowledge and assign participants to a low or a high prior knowledge group. A 2×2 factorial design was used to investigate the effects of note taking during prior knowledge activation (yes, no) depending on learners' level of prior knowledge (low, high) on mental effort, performance, and mental efficiency. Note taking during prior knowledge activation lowered mental effort and increased mental efficiency for high prior knowledge learners. For low prior knowledge learners, note taking had the opposite effect on mental effort and mental efficiency. The effects of the retrieval-directed function of note taking are influenced by learners' level of prior knowledge. Learners with high prior knowledge benefit from taking notes while activating prior knowledge, whereas note taking has no beneficial effects for learners with limited prior knowledge.

The Effect of Inquiry-Based Activities and Prior Knowledge on Undergraduates’ Understanding of ReversibilityThis NSF funded (DUE 0717536) study investigates the role of prior knowledge and the use ofinquiry-based activities and their method of implementation to reduce misconceptions in five keyareas of thermodynamics (Entropy, Reversibility, Equilibrium and Steady State, Internal Energy,and Enthalpy), with a more detailed focus on reversibility. There is documented evidence ofproblems understanding heat, temperature, and energy concepts. Even after instruction,undergraduate engineering students have been found to still hold misconceptions aboutthermodynamic concepts. Previous research has shown that it is difficult to repair thesemisconceptions using a lecture-based pedagogy. One promising approach is the use of inquiry-based activities however; the way these activities are implemented can impact outcomes andprevious research has shown that faculty does not always implement activities as they areinstructed. The prior knowledge students bring to the classroom can also represent a challengewhen trying to alter these misconceptions. It would be anticipated from research that studentswith some prior knowledge from other engineering courses should have a better understanding ofthermodynamic concepts.A quasi-experimental design was used to analyze pre-post data from 26 different undergraduate,thermodynamics classes from multiple institutions, some who used a series of inquiry-basedactivities in each key concept area as part of their instruction and some who did not. Those usingthe inquiry-based activities were given a set of two activities along with worksheets andexplanatory materials for each of the five concept areas where misconceptions had previouslybeen identified, including reversibility. The Concept Inventory for EngineeringThermodynamics (CIET) and its Reversibility sub-test were used to measure conceptual change.Both have been found to have sufficiently high estimates of internal consistency reliability to beused for research purposes. Data was also collected on whether students had previously takenfluid dynamics and heat transfer courses. Finally, instructors were asked to indicate how theyhad implemented a packet of inquiry-based activities specifically designed to teach reversibility.Results showed that conceptual understanding of thermodynamics (five concept areas) asmeasured on the CIET was significantly higher for the inquiry-based activities groups than theno inquiry-based (control) groups, although the effect size was small. Post-test scores weresignificantly higher for students who had previously taken courses in fluid dynamics and heattransfer when compared to those who had not. There was a significant difference between theinquiry-based and control groups on students’ understanding of reversibility and theirunderstanding of this concept area was impacted by their having taken fluid dynamics and heattransfer. The way in which the professors implemented the reversibility activities was collectedand evaluated.

Inquiry learning is an effective learning approach if learners are properly guided. Its effectiveness depends on learners’ prior knowledge, the domain, and their relationship. In a previous study we developed an Experiment Design Tool (EDT) guiding learners in designing experiments. The EDT significantly benefited low prior knowledge learners. For the current study the EDT was refined to also serve higher prior knowledge learners. Two versions were created; the “Constrained EDT” required learners to design minimally three experimental trials and apply CVS before they could conduct their experiment, and the “Open EDT” allowed learners to design as many trials as they wanted, and vary more than one variable. Three conditions were compared in terms of learning gains for learners having distinct levels of prior knowledge. Participants designed and conducted experiments within an online learning environment that (1) did not include an EDT, (2) included the Constrained EDT, or (3) included the Open EDT. Results indicated low prior knowledge learners to benefit most from the Constrained EDT (non-significant), low-intermediate prior knowledge learners from the Open EDT (significant), and high-intermediate prior knowledge learners from no EDT (non-significant). We advocate guidance to be configurable to serve learners with varying levels of prior knowledge.

Active cultural transmission of fitness-enhancing behavior (sometimes called “teaching”) can be seen as a costly strategy: one for which its evolutionary stability poses a Darwinian puzzle. In this article, we offer a biological market model of cultural transmission that substitutes or complements existing kin selection-based proposals for the evolution of cultural capacities. We demonstrate how a biological market can account for the evolution of teaching when individual learners are the exclusive focus of social learning (such as in a fast-changing environment). We also show how this biological market can affect the dynamics of cumulative culture. The model works best when it is difficult to have access to the observation of the behavior without the help of the actor. However, in contrast to previous non-mathematical hypotheses for the evolution of teaching, we show how teaching evolves, even when innovations are insufficiently opaque and therefore vulnerable to acquisition by emulators via inadvertent transmission. Furthermore, teaching in a biological market is an important precondition for enhancing individual learning abilities.

How can cognitive load in visual displays of computer simulations be optimized? Middle-school chemistry students (N = 257) learned with a simulation of the ideal gas law. Visual complexity was manipulated by separating the display of the simulations in 2 screens (low complexity) or presenting all information on 1 screen (high complexity). The mode of visual representation in the simulation was manipulated by presenting important information in symbolic form only (symbolic representations) or by adding iconic information to the display (iconic + symbolic representations), locating the sliders controlling the simulation separated from the simulation or integrating them, and graphing either only the most recent simulation result or showing all results taken. Separated screen displays and the use of optimized visual displays each promoted comprehension and transfer, especially for low prior-knowledge learners. An expertise reversal effect was found for learners' prior general science knowledge. Results indicate that intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load in visual displays can be manipulated and that learners' prior knowledge moderates the effectiveness of these load manipulations.

This ethnographic study examines Royal Boat Song (He Ruea Luang) cultural transmission as empirical evidence for evolutionary approaches to imaginative culture. Through ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Phitsanulok Province, Thailand (2024-2025), we analyzed how this elite court tradition successfully adapted from royal water processions to community Buddhist merit-making ceremonies while maintaining core musical and ceremonial elements. Our findings demonstrate cultural transmission mechanisms predicted by evolutionary theory: selective retention of adaptive features including four-section musical structure, specialized vocal techniques, and ceremonial significance, combined with contextual modifications serving contemporary community needs through localized poetic content, Buddhist ceremonial integration, and riverbank performance venues. The research reveals how Royal Boat Songs function as adaptive cultural inheritance systems, facilitating group bonding, cultural memory preservation, and religious expression while evolving through community agency. Results show high-fidelity transmission of core musical structures with systematic adaptive variation in textual content, supporting cultural attraction theory predictions about cognitive constraints in cultural evolution. This case study provides empirical support for theories positioning imaginative culture as arising from human nature's evolved capacities for social cooperation, meaning-making, and collective identity formation, while demonstrating that cultural preservation occurs through adaptive evolution rather than static maintenance.

Cultural evolution of cooperation: The interplay between forms of social learning and group selection

Children's Mathematics Learning: The Struggle to Link Form and Understanding

Understanding the role of ritual in the evolution of social complexity requires attention to many complex, interacting processes operating at different levels. This chapter attempts to sort these out into a coherent overarching framework by building on the ideas of British biologist, philosopher, and polymath C. H. Waddington, who put forward the idea of an ‘epigenetic landscape’ to explain how organisms develop. Waddington’s basic model can be extended to explain how cognitive-developmental and social-historical landscapes unfold and how all three kinds of landscapes interact. Adopting this overarching perspective on cultural evolution helps bridge the unnecessary divisions among branches of evolutionary theory and psychology that emphasize distinct but potentially complementary aspects of social learning and cultural transmission.

We introduce a mathematical model of cultural evolution to study cultural traits that shape how individuals exchange information. Current theory focuses on traits that influence the reception of information (receiver traits), such as evaluating whether information represents the majority or stems from a trusted source. Our model shifts the focus from the receiver to the sender of cultural information and emphasizes the role of sender traits, such as communicability or persuasiveness. Here, we show that sender traits are probably a stronger driving force in cultural evolution than receiver traits. While receiver traits evolve to curb cultural transmission, sender traits can amplify it and fuel the self-organization of systems of mutually supporting cultural traits, including traits that cannot be maintained on their own. Such systems can reach arbitrary complexity, potentially explaining uniquely human practical and mental skills, goals, knowledge and creativity, independent of innate factors. Our model incorporates social and individual learning throughout the lifespan, thus connecting cultural evolutionary theory with developmental psychology. This approach provides fresh insights into the trait-individual duality, that is, how cultural transmission of single traits is influenced by individuals, who are each represented as an acquired system of cultural traits.

Cultural Evolution of Language

Previous research has demonstrated that background knowledge has a clear influence on concept learning. This influence, however, has been observed with a narrow range of intentional learning tasks. In the present experiments, the role of background knowledge was examined as a function of a variety of incidental learning tasks as well as with intentional learning tasks. The influence of prior knowledge was investigated by comparing the encoding of conceptually related co-occurrences with the encoding of conceptually unrelated co-occurrences. A clear influence of prior knowledge was observed with incidental encoding, and conceptual relatedness was found to have at least as powerful an influence with incidental as with intentional learning tasks. The results indicate that many types of knowledge-based influences will not vary as a function of encoding strategy. The pervasiveness and strength of the influence of background knowledge on concept learning are discussed.