1,720,986 research outputs found
Adaptive Social Learning: Social Learning Strategies and their Applications
No full textAlthough social learning is intuitively useful, researchers from several fields have, over the last 30 years, increasingly recognized that it is not inherently adaptive. Individuals certainly can gain fitness benefits by learning from others as they may acquire adaptive information yet avoid costs associated with the acquisition of asocial information, such as time or energy loss, opportunity costs, and predation. However, theoretical and empirical research indicates that social information use does not guarantee success. Theoretical models predict that social learning will not be employed in an indiscriminate manner and, instead, heuristics, or social learning strategies (also termed ‘transmission biases’) should bias individuals to copy particular behaviours (‘what’ strategies), performed by specific others (‘who’ strategies), under suitable circumstances (‘when’ strategies). This chapter provides a brief, non-exhaustive, review of the evidence for these social learning strategies in both humans and nonhumans. It also discusses key current debates such as the extent to which these strategies are conscious, and are products of genetic or cultural evolution, learning, or a combination of the two. Finally, it highlights the implications of social learning strategies for applied contexts and consider examples of how they have been put to practical use
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Cross-Species Comparisons of Human and Non-Human Culture: Approaches, Discoveries, Limitations, and Future Directions
No full textStudies that directly compare the behaviour of two or more species can identify important similarities and differences in the psychological mechanisms that underpin culture, social learning, and innovation. This chapter focuses on the phylogenetically closely related human children and non-human primates to justify a comparative approach to understanding culture. Methodological approaches are outlined, and formative comparative research is summarized. We provide an overview of close convergence in many behaviours, highlighting potential evolutionary foundations and the necessary psychological toolkit underpinning culture, social learning, and innovation. Alongside this, the chapter illustrates the equally valuable divergence between species, demonstrating differences in behaviour and cognition that further illuminate our understanding of the mechanisms of culture. The challenges and limitations of comparative approaches are acknowledged and explored, and future avenues of effective comparative research are proposed
What Is Innovation?: A Review of Definitions, Approaches, and Key Questions in Human and Non-Human Innovation
Get PDFInnovation, new or modified learned behaviour, is core to cultural evolution and fundamental to the success of humans. Innovations allow us to adapt to and change habitats, solve novel problems, and survive and flourish in diverse environments. Innovation also appears to be pervasive across the animal kingdom, with adaptive importance within a wide range of species. This chapter covers how innovation and its subcategories are defined and studied and its importance to both cultural and genetic evolution. The authors discuss the difficulty of creating useful, operational definitions that can link disparate fields, and controversies in the study of innovation, such as the independence of innovation from processes such as exploration and creativity. Considering costs and benefits to innovation, the authors address how individual, social, and ecological influences shape innovative propensities. The chapter finishes by discussing how cross-disciplinary research is key to resolving controversies within the field
Culture in cetaceans
No full textOur shared mammalian heritage makes cetaceans extremely important in any comparative analysis. There is a wide diversity of cetacean taxa, but, given their aquatic lifestyle, we know relatively little about most species. A handful of well-studied species provide convincing evidence that cultural transmission occurs in a number of behavioural contexts including foraging, communication, and migration. In this chapter, the authors highlight examples of social learning, cultural evolution, and the emergence of local cultures, using several case studies. These include vocal learning and multiple foraging traditions in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.), vocal clans and cultural hitchhiking in sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus), migratory culture in southern right whales (Eubalaena australis), song culture and foraging traditions in humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), and the evolution of killer whale (Orcinus orca) ecotypes. Finally, the authors explore how some of these behaviours are linked to recent genomic findings suggesting that gene-culture coevolution is occurring in some populations, and how knowledge of cultural differences among groups and populations can inform conservation management.<br/
Conspiracy Theories: A Cultural Evolution Theory approach
Get PDFConspiracy theories have been part of human culture for hundreds of years, if not millennia, and have been the subject of research in academic fields such as social psychology, political science, and cultural studies. At present, there has been little research examining conspiracy theories from a cultural evolution perspective. This chapter discusses the value of cultural evolution approaches to understanding the diffusion of conspiracy theories. Focusing on the role of biases in cultural transmission, it argues that a key advantage of applying a cultural evolution approach to this phenomenon is that it provides a strong theoretical and methodological framework to bridge the individual-, inter-individual-, and population-level factors that explain the cultural success of conspiracy theories, with potential for producing insights into how to limit their negative influence
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Dialectics that sweep away ‘COWDUNG’:the construction of evolutionary, cultural, and scientific niches
No full textDevelopmental geneticist Conrad Waddington and evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin, two of the pioneers of niche construction theory, were explicit in regarding organisms as co-directing their own evolution. In The Ethical Animal (1960), Waddington anticipated features of contemporary cultural evolution theory, including the evolutionary significance of cultural norms. Lewontin was suspicious of evolutionary accounts of human behaviour, which he viewed as governed by political forces and power relations, and in The Dialectical Biologist (1985) stressed how scientific enquiry could be biased by politics. Here the authors suggest that Waddington’s emphasis on ethical considerations, and Lewontin’s admonitions concerning sociopolitical interpretation of biological research, remain relevant to the field of cultural evolution, and they review some related scientific controversies. The authors argue that human cultural activities not only construct evolutionary and cultural niches, but also scientific niches. This reasoning applies to both contemporary debates within the evolutionary human sciences and wider evolutionary theory, including niche construction theory itself
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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