Cumulative culture in the laboratory: methodological and theoretical challenges

Proceedings. Biological Sciences
Helena Miton, Mathieu Charbonneau

Abstract

In the last decade, cultural transmission experiments (transmission chains, replacement, closed groups and seeded groups) have become important experimental tools in investigating cultural evolution. However, these methods face important challenges, especially regarding the operationalization of theoretical claims. In this review, we focus on the study of cumulative cultural evolution, the process by which traditions are gradually modified and, for technological traditions in particular, improved upon over time. We identify several mismatches between theoretical definitions of cumulative culture and their implementation in cultural transmission experiments. We argue that observed performance increase can be the result of participants learning faster in a group context rather than effectively leading to a cumulative effect. We also show that in laboratory experiments, participants are asked to complete quite simple tasks, which can undermine the evidential value of the diagnostic criterion traditionally used for cumulative culture (i.e. that cumulative culture is a process that produces solutions that no single individual could have invented on their own). We show that the use of unidimensional metrics of cumulativeness drastica...Continue Reading

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Citations

Aug 24, 2019·Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. Cognitive Science·Christine A CaldwellCharlotte E H Wilks
Jun 4, 2020·Biology Letters·Elisa BandiniClaudio Tennie
Aug 11, 2020·The Behavioral and Brain Sciences·Maxime Derex, Robert Boyd
Feb 23, 2020·Scientific Reports·Kyanoush Seyed Yahosseini, Mehdi Moussaïd
Mar 16, 2019·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Nicolas FayChristine A Caldwell
Jan 10, 2021·Human Nature : an Interdisciplinary Biosocial Perspective·François OsiurakEmanuelle Reynaud
Oct 29, 2020·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Helena MitonDan Sperber
Nov 19, 2020·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Amanda J LucasAlex Thornton
Mar 16, 2021·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Bill Thompson, Thomas L Griffiths
Oct 1, 2021·The Behavioral and Brain Sciences·Massimo LumacaGiosuè Baggio

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