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Using Experimental Research Designs to Explore the Scope of Cumulative Culture in Humans and Other Animals
In humans, cultural evolutionary processes are capable of shaping our cognition, because the conceptual tools we learn from others enable mental feats which otherwise would be beyond our capabilities. This is possible because human culture supports the intergenerational accumulation of skills and kn...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2018
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7379729/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30375756 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tops.12391 |
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author | Caldwell, Christine A. |
author_facet | Caldwell, Christine A. |
author_sort | Caldwell, Christine A. |
collection | PubMed |
description | In humans, cultural evolutionary processes are capable of shaping our cognition, because the conceptual tools we learn from others enable mental feats which otherwise would be beyond our capabilities. This is possible because human culture supports the intergenerational accumulation of skills and knowledge, such that later generations can benefit from the experience and exploration efforts of their predecessors. However, it remains unclear how exactly human social transmission supports the accumulation of advantageous traits, and why we see little evidence of this in the natural behavior of other species. Thus, it is difficult to know whether the cognitive abilities of other animals might be similarly scaffolded by processes of cultural evolution. In this article, I discuss how experimental studies of cultural evolution have contributed to our understanding of human cumulative culture, as well as some of the limitations of these approaches. I also discuss how similar research designs can be used to evaluate the potential for cumulative culture in other species. Such research may be able to clarify what distinguishes human cumulative culture from related phenomena in nonhumans, shedding light on the issue of whether other species also have the potential to develop cognitive capacities that are outcomes of cultural evolution. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7379729 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-73797292020-07-27 Using Experimental Research Designs to Explore the Scope of Cumulative Culture in Humans and Other Animals Caldwell, Christine A. Top Cogn Sci Forthcoming Topic: The Cultural Evolution of Cognition In humans, cultural evolutionary processes are capable of shaping our cognition, because the conceptual tools we learn from others enable mental feats which otherwise would be beyond our capabilities. This is possible because human culture supports the intergenerational accumulation of skills and knowledge, such that later generations can benefit from the experience and exploration efforts of their predecessors. However, it remains unclear how exactly human social transmission supports the accumulation of advantageous traits, and why we see little evidence of this in the natural behavior of other species. Thus, it is difficult to know whether the cognitive abilities of other animals might be similarly scaffolded by processes of cultural evolution. In this article, I discuss how experimental studies of cultural evolution have contributed to our understanding of human cumulative culture, as well as some of the limitations of these approaches. I also discuss how similar research designs can be used to evaluate the potential for cumulative culture in other species. Such research may be able to clarify what distinguishes human cumulative culture from related phenomena in nonhumans, shedding light on the issue of whether other species also have the potential to develop cognitive capacities that are outcomes of cultural evolution. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2018-10-30 2020-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7379729/ /pubmed/30375756 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tops.12391 Text en © 2018 The Authors. Topics in Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Cognitive Science Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Forthcoming Topic: The Cultural Evolution of Cognition Caldwell, Christine A. Using Experimental Research Designs to Explore the Scope of Cumulative Culture in Humans and Other Animals |
title | Using Experimental Research Designs to Explore the Scope of Cumulative Culture in Humans and Other Animals |
title_full | Using Experimental Research Designs to Explore the Scope of Cumulative Culture in Humans and Other Animals |
title_fullStr | Using Experimental Research Designs to Explore the Scope of Cumulative Culture in Humans and Other Animals |
title_full_unstemmed | Using Experimental Research Designs to Explore the Scope of Cumulative Culture in Humans and Other Animals |
title_short | Using Experimental Research Designs to Explore the Scope of Cumulative Culture in Humans and Other Animals |
title_sort | using experimental research designs to explore the scope of cumulative culture in humans and other animals |
topic | Forthcoming Topic: The Cultural Evolution of Cognition |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7379729/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30375756 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tops.12391 |
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