22 results in The Biology of Traditions
15 - Conclusions and research agendas
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- By Susan Perry, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles
- Edited by Dorothy M. Fragaszy, University of Georgia, Susan Perry, University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary
Current state of knowledge regarding the biology of traditions
What is the biological importance of social learning and traditions to the animals?
Recently, biologists have become aware that social learning may play a pivotal role in the behavioral biology and evolution of many animal species. Animals may alter their environments in such a way that they create new selective pressures for the next generation; in other words, they take an active role in shaping the environments that determine the course of their species' evolution (Avital and Jablonka, 2000; Laland, Odling-Smee and Feldman, 2000; Pulliam, 2000; see Ch. 12 for examples of ways in which nonhuman primates may construct their niches). Nevertheless, there are astonishingly few data, particularly from the field, regarding the prevalence of traditions in nature and the fitness consequences of engaging in social learning or practicing particular traditions. Consequently, modelers continue to rely heavily on thought experiments and hypothetical examples to convince readers of the logic of their arguments (e.g., Avital and Jablonka, 2000). Currently, there are very few species and behavioral domains for which the topic of traditions has been thoroughly addressed (i.e., with adequate methodology to assess the role of social learning) in the wild, and we know little about the biological importance of social learning in nature. There are, no doubt, taxonomic biases regarding which species and topics have been targeted for study (e.g., biologists regularly look for tool use in primates and vocal traditions in birds).
6 - “Traditional” foraging behaviors of brown and black rats (Rattus norvegicus and Rattus rattus)
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- By Bennett G. Galef, Jr., Department of Psychology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada
- Edited by Dorothy M. Fragaszy, University of Georgia, Susan Perry, University of California, Los Angeles
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The brown rat, in particular, appears especially able to develop local traditions, more so perhaps than other more-closely examined mammals, possibly including the anthropoids.
Steiniger, 1950, p. 368Introduction
Imagine, if you will, an energetic, young graduate student who has established a study site near Para, Brazil, where she spends 3 years observing a geographically isolated population of capuchin monkeys that no other primatologist has looked at. Imagine further that our graduate student soon finds, to her great surprise and pleasure, that all of the members of one troop of capuchins at Para, unlike any previously studied capuchins, regularly hunt and eat small lizards. Many months of demanding field work show that the lizards are the source of more than 20% of the calories and 36% of the protein ingested by troop members.
Discovering a complex, biologically meaningful pattern of behavior that is unique to a particular population of monkeys would be a significant event in the career of any behavioral scientist. Surely, before very long, our imaginary graduate student is going to want to tell her colleagues, and quite possibly members of the media as well, about her discovery. To do so, she is going to have to decide how to refer to the unusual behavior that her field studies have documented.
If our imaginary graduate student were to make the conventional choice, and there is little reason to doubt that she would, she would soon be referring to the lizard hunting she has observed as “cultural”, as a “tradition” of the capuchins at Para.
14 - Traditions in wild white-faced capuchin monkeys
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- By Susan Perry, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, Melissa Panger, Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, 2110 G St. NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA, Lisa M. Rose, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of British Columbia. 6303 NW Marine Drive, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T, Mary Baker, Department of Anthropology, Whittier College, 13406 Philadelphia St., Whittier, CA 90608, USA, Julie Gros-Louis, Department of Psychology, University of Indiana, 1101 E. 10th St., Bloomington, IN 47405, USA, Katherine Jack, Department of Anthropology, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA, Katherine C. Mackinnon, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Saint Louis University, 3500 Lindell Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63103, USA, Joseph Manson, Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie, Inselstraße 22, 04103 Leipzig, Germany, Linda Fedigan, Department of Anthropology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada, Kendra Pyle, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
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Introduction
Primatologists have long recognized that social learning could play an important role in food choice and food processing in primates, since the discovery (by Itani in 1958) of innovative food-processing techniques disseminated among Japanese macaques (see Ch. 10 for a review of subsequent findings). It is somewhat surprising that, after the initial discovery of the importance of social learning in Japanese macaques, practically all subsequent research on social learning in wild nonhuman primates has been on apes (e.g. Boesch, 1996a, 1996b; Boesch and Boesch-Achermann, 2000; Boesch and Tomasello, 1998; McGrew, 1992, 1998; van Schaik, Deaner, and Merrill, 1999; Whiten et al., 1999; see Chs. 10 and 11). To remedy the gap in what we know about social learning in natural settings in other primates, and because a truly comparative framework is necessary to understand the biological underpinnings of social learning (see Ch. 1), we began a comprehensive study of social learning in wild capuchin monkeys (Cebus spp.). Our study investigates the probable role of social learning in a number of behavioral domains.
Capuchins seem particularly likely to exhibit extensive reliance on learning, and social learning in particular, for the following reasons (Fragaszy, Visalberghi, and Fedigan, 2003). Several aspects of capuchin ecology promote behavioral flexibility. First, the genus Cebus occupies a wider geographic area than any other New World genus apart from Alouatta (Emmons, 1997), and it uses many different habitat types. Therefore, capuchins face a wide variety of environmental challenges.
12 - Developmental perspectives on great ape traditions
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- By Anne E. Russon, Psychology Department, Glendon College of York University, 2275 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4N 3M6, Canada
- Edited by Dorothy M. Fragaszy, University of Georgia, Susan Perry, University of California, Los Angeles
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Introduction
Interest in nonhuman primate culture arose primarily because of the insights promised into human culture, given the likelihood that evolutionary continuities link the two. Concepts of human culture are not directly applicable to nonhuman primates, however, because nonhuman primates do not share all the capacities deemed intrinsic to human culture. Scholars interested in comparative evolutionary questions, therefore, set aside features considered beyond the reach of nonhuman primates in order to focus on what is taken as the core feature of culture: a collective system of shared, learned practices. The focal phenomena in studies of nonhuman primate culture are then its products, enduring behavioral traditions, and the processes that generate them, social influences on learning operating at the group level over long periods of time (e.g., Donald, 1991; Kummer, 1971; McGrew, 1998; Nishida, 1987). It would be surprising, in fact, if such traditions were not prominent in the lives of nonhuman primates. Nonhuman primates typically rely on intricate forms of sociality for survival (Humphrey, 1976; Jolly, 1966; Smuts et al., 1987) and on lifelong learning for much of their expertise (Fobes and King, 1982; King, 1994; Parker and Gibson, 1990). How widely practices must be shared, how much they must owe to social influence, and how long they must endure to qualify as “traditions” remain matters of debate (see Ch. 1).
Great apes stand out in this enterprise because their traditions may be more complex than those of other nonhuman primates (Parker and Russon, 1996; Whiten et al., 1999).
Acknowledgements
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- By Dorothy M. Fragaszy, Professor of Psychology and the Chair of the Neuroscience and Behavior Program, University of Georgia, Susan Perry, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles
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11 - Local traditions in orangutans and chimpanzees: social learning and social tolerance
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- By Carel P. Van Schaik, Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Duke University, Box 90383, Durham, NC 27708-0383, USA
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Introduction
Upon sufficiently close inspection, virtually all animals will show spatial variation in their behavior. Most studies of behavioral geography have focused on local adaptation, in part based on genetic differences in learning predispositions (e.g., Foster and Endler, 1999). Only a few studies have assumed that the geographic variation in behavior was affected by social learning; that is, it was traditional rather than genetic in origin (e.g., Galef, 1976, 1992, 1998). Primate studies, however, are clearly the exception to this rule: social transmission is often thought to be important (e.g., Wrangham, de Waal, and McGrew, 1994). Unfortunately, descriptive field studies face various obstacles, making it very difficult to demonstrate unequivocally that differential invention and social transmission underlie the pattern of geographic variation.
Local variants can be defined as behaviors that show geographically patchy distribution (Table 11.1.) Following Galef (1976, 1992) and Fragaszy and Perry (Ch. 1), it appears that three criteria must be met to decide that a local variant qualifies as a tradition: (a) the local variant must be common, shown by multiple individuals (cf. McGrew, 1998); (b) it must be long lasting, probably persisting across generations; and (c) it must be maintained by some form(s) of social learning.
Field studies can yield information on condition (a) and, with some patience, on condition (b); however, the processes underlying the acquisition of behavior (condition (c)) are notoriously difficult to study in the wild.
13 - Do brown capuchins socially learn foraging skills?
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- By Sue Boinski, Department of Anthropology, 1112 Turlington Hall, PO Box 117305, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-7305, USA, Robert P. Quatrone, Trevor Day School, 1 West 88th st., New York, NY 10024, USA, Karen Sughrue, 205 Forest Resources Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA, Lara Selvaggi, 42 Lexington Avenue, Apt 3, Greenwich, CT 06830, USA, Malinda Henry, Behavior, Ecology, Evolution and Systematics Program, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA, Claudia M. Stickler, College of Natural Resources and Environment, Box 116455, 105 Black Hall, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-6455, USA, Lisa M. Rosea, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of British Columbia. 6303 NW Marine Drive, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z1, Canada
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Introduction
Tool use and complex object manipulation skills are of intense interest to many disciplines. Yet the number of nonhuman primate taxa exploited in these comparative studies is usually limited to the great apes, and especially the chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes. The focus on chimpanzees is understandable. In the wild, chimpanzees greatly exceed all other apes in the frequency and complexity of tool manufacture and object and tool use (Sugiyama, 1997; Whiten et al., 1999). In captivity, however, tool use and complex object manipulation is common and can be readily elicited from all great ape species (Visalberghi et al., 1995).
In recent years, primatologists and comparative psychologists have paid increasing attention to the manipulative skills of capuchins, the New World primate genus Cebus. Not only does the proclivity of capuchins to use tools surpass that of all other monkeys either in the Old or the New World, but in many respects the spontaneous manipulative activities and dexterity of capuchins and chimpanzees share many characteristics (Anderson, 1996; Antinucci and Visalberghi, 1986; Panger, 1998; Parker and Gibson, 1977). Capuchins are well known for strenuous arthropod-extraction techniques and complex manipulation of difficult to process fruits (Fragaszy and Boinski, 1995; Janson and Boinski, 1992). Pounding and rubbing of fruits, invertebrates, and other food items against hard substrates is another food-processing technique exhibited by all four capuchin species (C. apella, brown capuchin, in Colombia and Peru: Izawa and Mizuno, 1977; Struhsaker and Leland, 1977; Terborgh, 1983; C. albifrons, white-fronted capuchin in Peru: Terborgh, 1983; C. capucinus, white-faced capuchin, in Costa Rica: Panger, 1998; Rose, 2001; and C. olivaceus, wedge-capped capuchin, in Venezuela: Fragaszy and Boinski, 1995; Robinson, 1986).
9 - Like mother, like calf: the ontogeny of foraging traditions in wild Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.)
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- By Janet Mann, Department of Biology, Georgetown University, Reiss Science Building, Washington, DC 20057, USA, Brooke Sargeant, Department of Biology, Georgetown University, Reiss Science Building, Washington, DC 20057, USA
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Introduction
In this chapter, we identify aspects of delphinid socioecology and life history that relate to the probability and utility of socially aided learning. We also present new findings from our on-going research with dolphins at Shark Bay, Australia that address the possibility that the acquisition of specialized foraging techniques by young dolphins is aided by their affiliation with their mothers and, thus, may be viewed as likely traditions. Studies of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops spp.) in captive and field settings over the last four decades indicate that this genus shows remarkable plasticity and convergent features with primates. Similar to primates, bottlenose dolphins have a long period of dependency and juvenile development (Mann et al., 2000), large brains for body size (Marino, 1998; Ridgway, 1986), complex alliance formation (Connor et al., 2000a), and social learning (reviewed in Janik, 1999; Janik and Slater, 1997; Rendell and Whitehead, 2001). Unlike nonhuman primates, bottlenose dolphins also show vocal learning in call production (Janik and Slater, 1997, 2000; see also Ch. 8); they produce individually distinctive “signature whistles” (Sayigh et al., 1995, 1999; Tyack, 2000) and can also match each other's whistles in natural contexts (Janik, 2000).
Recently, several cetacean biologists have claimed that cetaceans have culture (Deecke, Ford, and Spong, 2000; Noad et al., 2000; Rendell and Whitehead, 2001; Whitehead, 1998). The strongest evidence for social learning comes from bottlenose dolphins studied in captive settings (reviewed by Rendell and Whitehead, 2001).
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8 - Traditions in mammalian and avian vocal communication
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- By Vincent M. Janik, Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Biology, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife KY16 9TS, UK, Peter J. B. Slater, School of Biology, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife, KY 16 9TS, UK
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Introduction
The most basic definition of traditions used by biologists is the one given by Fragaszy and Perry in Ch. 1. It states that traditions are enduring behavior patterns that are shared by at least two individuals and that are acquired in part through social learning. Laland, Richerson, and Boyd (1993) distinguished between two forms of social learning. The first involves primarily horizontal information transmission (i.e., between animals of the same generation) in which information is of only transient value, as in the acquisition of foraging information in a highly variable environment. In the second, information is transmitted vertically (between generations) and results in what Laland et al. (1993) call stable traditions. In this definition, socially learned information has to remain in the population for a certain period of time before it can be called a tradition. These two forms appear not to be exclusive but rather are placed at different points on a continuum. However, it is useful to consider the results of social learning in this theoretical framework to demonstrate how social learning in communication systems differs from that in other domains. We will use these concepts to review vocal traditions in mammals and birds.
By definition, every form of learning about communication has to involve another individual since communication involves at least two individuals. The only exception is learning to change the quality of a signal through practicing. However, this can be recognized by observing the performance of an isolated individual as it changes.
2 - What the models say about social learning
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- By Kevin N. Laland, Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Biology, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife KY16 9TS, UK, Jeremy R. Kendal, Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, University of Cambridge, Madingley, Cambridge, CB3 8AA, UK
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Introduction
All too often theoretically minded scientists soar off into an abstract mathematical world that seemingly makes little contact with empirical reality. The field of animal social learning and tradition has its very own assortment of theory, although in truth it is a somewhat paltry portion, and the mathematics rarely get that sophisticated. Nonetheless, the modelers and the empirical scientists, while perhaps converging, have for the most part yet to meet in any consensus of shared goals and understanding. As the most effective mathematical models in science are undoubtedly those making clear, empirically testable predictions, it would obviously be of value if the mathematics had some utility to other researchers in the field of animal social learning. Moreover, as the best models are those with assumptions well informed by empirical findings, it would also clearly help if social learning researchers collected the kind of information that was relevant to grounding the models.
The over-arching goal of this article is to contribute towards the further integration of empirical and theoretical work in animal social learning. While this is a worthy long-term objective, it is apparent that such an integration is unlikely to happen overnight. At the time of writing, most of the mathematical theory in our field has been developed without the benefit of a thorough understanding of animal social learning, in fact, largely without nonhuman animals in mind.
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4 - Social learning about food in birds
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- By Louis Lefebvre, Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205 avenue Docteur Penfield, Montréal, Québec H3A 1B1, Canada, Julie Bouchard, Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205 Avenue Docteur Penfield, Montreal, Québec H3A 1B1, Canada
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Introduction
Since the classic studies on potato and wheat washing in Japanese macaques (Kawai, 1965), traditions have often been studied in nonhuman animals because they represent an important precursor to human culture. This anthropocentric program has led many researchers to study primates and to focus on cognitive traits that are associated with human culture, for example imitation, language, tool use, and theory of mind. In this perspective, the study of nonhuman culture has recently culminated in the demonstration that wild chimpanzees in seven African populations show as many as 39 behavioral variants that may be attributed to “culture” (Whiten et al., 1999). For psychologists and anthropologists, the concern with precursors of human behavior in the closest relatives of Homo sapiens is perfectly justified. For biologists, however, the evolution of cognition must be studied on a much broader and phylogenetically distant set of taxa; in comparative biology (Harvey and Pagel, 1991), one of the goals is to remove phylogenetic influences from taxonomic data and to look for independent evolution of traits as adaptations to particular ecological and life-history conditions.
In this chapter, we compare the origin and diffusion of new feeding behaviors in birds and mammals. We begin by explaining why birds are particularly suitable to a comparison with mammals, and we discuss the use of anecdotal reports in the study of cognition. We then highlight three features by which the current literature on birds appears to differ from that on mammals and propose hypotheses to explain the differences.
7 - Food for thought: social learning about food in feeding capuchin monkeys
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- By Elisabetta Visalberghi, Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Via Ulisse Aldrovandi 16/B, 00197 Rome, Italy, Elsa Addessi, Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche, Via Ulisse Aldrovandi 16/B, 00197 Rome, Italy and Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e dell'Uomo, Università di Roma “La Sapienza', P. le A. Moro, 5-00185 Rome, Italy
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Introduction
It used to be thought that shared behaviors are learned from others and that this was especially true of infants and their mothers. In recent years, many scientists have advocated parsimony in interpreting the diffusion of innovative behaviors in primates (Galef, 1991; Heyes and Galef, 1996; Lefebvre, 1995; Miklósi, 1999; Tomasello and Call, 1997; Visalberghi and Fragaszy, 1990a). This view has prompted systematic investigations of the learning processes involved in the spread of innovations and fueled debates on the nature of cultural traditions (Boesch and Tomasello, 1998; Whiten et al., 1999). Capuchin monkeys are among the few primate species in which systematic research has been carried out on the acquisition and social learning of tool-using skills (Anderson, 2000; Fragaszy and Visalberghi, 1989; Visalberghi, 1993), on the patterns of object-related and goal-directed behaviors (Custance, Whiten, and Fredman, 1999; Fragaszy, Vitale, and Ritchie, 1994), and on the patterns of food-processing behaviors (e.g., “food washing”) (Visalberghi and Fragaszy, 1990b; for an extensive review see Visalberghi and Fragaszy, 2002). Overall, these studies have demonstrated that social influences such as stimulus enhancement, local enhancement, and object reenactment are indeed present, whereas imitative learning (defined as learning a novel behavior by observing it performed by a demonstrator) is not (Visalberghi, 2000; Visalberghi and Fragaszy, 2002). Therefore, although the species name Cebus imitator assigned to capuchin monkeys by the prominent taxonomist Thomas (1903) seems unwarranted, we have begun to realize that other social learning processes seem to influence capuchins' behavior.
10 - Biological and ecological foundations of primate behavioral tradition
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- By Michael A. Huffman, Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, 41-2 Kanrin, Inuyama Aichi 484-8508, Japan, Satoshi Hirata, Great Ape Research Institute, Hayashibara Biochemical Laboratories Inc., 952-2 Nu, Tamano Okayama 706-0316, Japan
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Introduction
An interest in nonhuman primate behavioral traditions has existed since the beginning of primatology, with some of the earliest details coming from the Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata). When Kyoto University researchers began their investigations in 1948, under the leadership of Denzaburo Miyadi and Kinji Imanishi (Asquith, 1991), animals were considered to act on instinct and such concepts as tradition or culture were considered to be a uniquely human trait (de Waal, 2001; Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952). Imanishi (1952) predicted the presence of “culture” in animals even before the results of these observations had begun to be published. He emphasized that, unlike instinct, culture in animals should be viewed as the expression of developmentally labile behaviors. He reasoned that, if one defines culture as behavior transmitted to offspring from parents, differences in the way of life of members of the same species, whether they are human, monkey, or wasp, belonging to different social groups could be attributed to culture. Imanishi's general argument still holds today, albeit with greater refinements in our overall view of the phenomenon (e.g., Avital and Jablonka, 2000; de Waal, 2001; McGrew, 2001). Currently, healthy debate over whether culture or tradition in humans and animals is really the same is ongoing (e.g., Boesch and Tomasello, 1998; Galef, 1992; Tuttle, 2001; see also Ch. 6).
We use the term behavioral tradition in this chapter to denote those behaviors for which social context contributes to their acquisition by new practitioners and which are maintained within a population through social means (as defined by Fragaszy and Perry in Ch. 1; McGrew, 2001).
3 - Relative brain size and the distribution of innovation and social learning across the nonhuman primates
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- By Simon M. Reader, Behavioural Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 14, PO Box 80086, 3508 TB, Utrecht, The Netherlands
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The history of comparative learning could simply be classified as disappointing. The comparative psychologist often appears to know little more than the grade school child who would rather have a pet dog than bird, or bird than fish, or fish than worm, simply because they make better friends, as they can be taught more. This state of affairs did not arise without considerable effort.
Riddell, 1979, p. 95Introduction
Ecology and “intelligence” are two commonly invoked explanations for species differences in the reliance on socially learned traditions, yet we know little about how social learning evolved. Here, I examine hypotheses for the evolution and evolutionary consequences of social learning and detail possible routes to address these ideas. I will test social and ecological hypotheses for primate brain evolution to illustrate possible approaches to the study of traditions. This chapter explores cognitive, ecological, and life-history variables that may accompany a propensity for social learning, specifically, the roles of brain size and social group size. I also examine the distribution of innovations and tool use across the nonhuman primates, to determine how these aspects of behavioral plasticity are associated with social learning and to explore the relationship between asocial and social learning. Such analyses can provide important clues as to whether we can sensibly talk about the “evolution of traditions”, or whether an increased reliance on social learning is simply a by-product of selection for generalized learning abilities.
Index
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1 - Towards a biology of traditions
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- By Dorothy M. Fragaszy, Professor of Psychology and the Chair of the Neuroscience and Behavior Program, University of Georgia, Susan Perry, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles
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Introduction
One who sees things from the beginning will have the finest view of them
Attributed to AristotleIn late 1997, a series of exchanges occurred on the internet bulletin board established by Linda Fedigan a year earlier to facilitate communication among the select circle of individuals studying capuchin monkeys (genus Cebus, in the family Cebidae of the New World monkeys). Someone posted a description of a strikingly odd behavior she had noticed in her main study group of about two dozen white-faced capuchin monkeys (C. capucinus). The behavior, a pattern of two individuals interacting in an apparently affiliative manner, had not been described in the literature for any other animal species. Several members of the group performed this behavior with each other routinely over a period of seven years, and it appeared a perfectly familiar aspect of their social behavior that field season, as if they always did this odd thing (see Ch. 14, for more details about the mystery behavior). Nevertheless, they had not done this during the first year of the study, nor had she observed the behavior in the neighboring group. The researcher was understandably curious whether anyone else had ever seen anything like it, or had any ideas on how it might have originated or its function. A flurry of messages ensued over the next few weeks, with several researchers confirming the first person's suspicion that this behavior was not a universal behavior in white-faced capuchins, and not known at all in other species of capuchins.
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Preface
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- By Dorothy M. Fragaszy, Professor of Psychology and the Chair of the Neuroscience and Behavior Program, University of Georgia, Susan Perry, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary
For many decades, the scientific discussion about social learning in nonhuman animals has been dominated by two concerns: (1) whether any nonhuman species, but ape species in particular, possess “culture”, and (2) which nonhuman species exhibit imitation, assumed by many to be a prerequisite or at the least an important support for culture. However, from a biological point of view, these questions only narrowly address fundamental issues about social learning in nonhuman animals. Their link to functional, developmental, and evolutionary questions is not obvious, for example. We wanted to know about these latter topics, as well as more broadly about mechanisms supporting social learning, so we set about asking our colleagues what they thought. We got many answers that we felt were worthy of better dissemination than they were receiving in the literature or in the classroom. This book is the result.
This book is intended for individuals interested in understanding social learning (the common short-hand phrase for what is more precisely called socially aided learning) in animals from a biological perspective. We focus on one outcome of social learning, traditions, as an element in behavioral ecology. By tradition, we mean a distinctive behavior pattern shared by two or more individuals in a social unit, which persists over time and that new practitioners acquire in part through socially aided learning. The process of social learning does not lead inevitably to enduring traditions, however.
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