Personality predicts innovation and social learning in children: Implications for cultural evolution

Children's limited tooling ability in a novel concurrent tool use task supports the innovation gap

School-aged children have consistently shown a surprising developmental lag when attempting to innovate solutions to tool use tasks, despite being capable of learning to solve these problems from a demonstrator. We suggest that this "innovation gap" arises from tool tasks with more complex spatial relations. Following Fragaszy and Mangalam's new tooling theory, we predicted that innovating a new "sticker slide" task should be more challenging when two tools need to be used at the same time (concurrently) rather than one at a time (sequentially), despite the similarity of the other task elements. In line with previous work, both versions of the task were challenging for all ages of children (4-9 years) that we tested. However, the youngest group showed particularly extreme difficulties, which was marked by not a single child innovating the concurrent version. Although success significantly increased with age, even the oldest group failed to reach 50% success on the concurrent version of the task, whereas the majority of the two older groups could solve the sequential version. Thus, in this first study of concurrent tool use in children, we found support for the prediction that increasing the complexity of spatial relations in tooling exacerbates the innovation gap.

When is it appropriate to ask a question? The role of age, social context, and personality

How do children decide when it is appropriate to ask a question? In Study 1 (preregistered), 50 4- and 5-year-olds, 50 7- and 8-year-olds, and 100 adults watched vignettes featuring a child who had a question, and participants indicated whether they thought the child should ask the question "right now." Both adults and children endorsed more question-asking to a well-known informant than to an acquaintance and to someone doing nothing than to someone busy working or busy socializing. However, younger children endorsed asking questions to someone who was busy more often than older children and adults. In addition, Big Five personality traits predicted endorsement of question-asking. In Study 2 (preregistered, N = 500), mothers' self-reports showed that children's actual question-asking varied with age, informant activity, and informant familiarity in ways that paralleled the results of Study 1. In Study 3 (N = 100), we examined mothers' responses to their children's question-asking and found that mothers' responses to their children's question-asking varied based on the mother's activity. In addition, mothers high in authoritarianism were less likely to answer their children's questions when they were busy than mothers low in authoritarianism. In sum, across three studies, we found evidence that the age-related decline in children's question-asking to their parents reflects a change in children's reasoning about when it is appropriate to ask a question.

Octopus vulgaris Exhibits Interindividual Differences in Behavioural and Problem-Solving Performance

By presenting individual Octopus vulgaris with an extractive foraging problem with a puzzle box, we examined the possible correlation between behavioural performances (e.g., ease of adaptation to captive conditions, prevalence of neophobic and neophilic behaviours, and propensity to learn individually or by observing conspecifics), biotic (body and brain size, age, sex) and abiotic (seasonality and place of origin) factors. We found more neophilic animals showing shorter latencies to approach the puzzle box and higher probability of solving the task; also, shorter times to solve the task were correlated with better performance on the individual learning task. However, the most neophilic octopuses that approached the puzzle box more quickly did not reach the solution earlier than other individuals, suggesting that strong neophilic tendency may lead to suboptimal performance at some stages of the problem-solving process. In addition, seasonal and environmental characteristics of location of origin appear to influence the rate of expression of individual traits central to problem solving. Overall, our analysis provides new insights into the traits associated with problem solving in invertebrates and highlights the presence of adaptive mechanisms that promote population-level changes in octopuses' behavioural traits.

Exploratory preferences explain the human fascination for imaginary worlds in fictional stories

Imaginary worlds are present and often central in many of the most culturally successful modern narrative fictions, be it in novels (e.g., Harry Potter), movies (e.g., Star Wars), video games (e.g., The Legend of Zelda), graphic novels (e.g., One Piece) and TV series (e.g., Game of Thrones). We propose that imaginary worlds are popular because they activate exploratory preferences that evolved to help us navigate the real world and find new fitness-relevant information. Therefore, we hypothesize that the attraction to imaginary worlds is intrinsically linked to the desire to explore novel environments and that both are influenced by the same underlying factors. Notably, the inter-individual and cross-cultural variability of the preference for imaginary worlds should follow the inter-individual and cross-cultural variability of exploratory preferences (with the personality trait Openness-to-experience, age, sex, and ecological conditions). We test these predictions with both experimental and computational methods. For experimental tests, we run a pre-registered online experiment about movie preferences (N = 230). For computational tests, we leverage two large cultural datasets, namely the Internet Movie Database (N = 9424 movies) and the Movie Personality Dataset (N = 3.5 million participants), and use machine-learning algorithms (i.e., random forest and topic modeling). In all, consistent with how the human preference for spatial exploration adaptively varies, we provide empirical evidence that imaginary worlds appeal more to more explorative people, people higher in Openness-to-experience, younger individuals, males, and individuals living in more affluent environments. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the cultural evolution of narrative fiction and, more broadly, the evolution of human exploratory preferences.

Cognitive flexibility supports the development of cumulative cultural learning in children

The scale of cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) is a defining characteristic of humans. Despite marked scientific interest in CCE, the cognitive underpinnings supporting its development remain understudied. We examined the role cognitive flexibility plays in CCE by studying U.S. children's (N = 167, 3-5-year-olds) propensity to relinquish an inefficient solution to a problem in favor of a more efficient alternative, and whether they would resist reverting to earlier versions. In contrast to previous work with chimpanzees, most children who first learned to solve a puzzlebox in an inefficient way switched to an observed, more efficient alternative. However, over multiple task interactions, 85% of children who switched reverted to the inefficient method. Moreover, almost all children in a control condition (who first learned the efficient method) switched to the inefficient method. Thus, children were keen to explore an alternative solution but, like chimpanzees, are overall conservative in reverting to their first-learned one.

Face-to-face learning enhances the social transmission of information

Learning from others provides the foundation for culture and the advancement of knowledge. Learning a new visuospatial skill from others represents a specific challenge-overcoming differences in perspective so that we understand what someone is doing and why they are doing it. The "what" of visuospatial learning is thought to be easiest from a shared 0° first-person perspective and most difficult from a 180° third-person perspective. However, the visual disparity at 180° promotes face-to-face interaction, which may enhance learning by scaffolding social perspective taking, the "why" of visuospatial learning. We tested these potentially conflicting hypotheses in child and young adult learners. Thirty-six children (4-6 years) and 57 young adults (18-27 years) observed a live model open a puzzle box from a first-person (0°) or third-person (90° or 180°) perspective. The puzzle box had multiple solutions, only one of which was modelled, which allowed for the assessment of imitation and goal emulation. Participants had three attempts to open the puzzle box from the model's perspective. While first-person (0°) observation increased imitation relative to a 180° third-person perspective, the 180° observers opened the puzzle box most readily (i.e., fastest). Although both age groups were excellent imitators and able to take the model's perspective, adults were more faithful imitators, and children were more likely to innovate a new solution. A shared visual perspective increased imitation, but a shared mental perspective promoted goal achievement and the social transmission of innovation. "Perfection of means and confusion of goals-in my opinion-seem to characterize our age" Einstein (1973) pg 337, Ideas and Opinions.

Young children spontaneously invent three different types of associative tool use behaviour

Associative Tool Use (ATU) describes the use of two or more tools in combination, with the literature further differentiating between Tool set use, Tool composite use, Sequential tool use and Secondary tool use. Research investigating the cognitive processes underlying ATU has shown that some primate and bird species spontaneously invent Tool set and Sequential tool use. Yet studies with humans are sparse. Whether children are also able to spontaneously invent ATU behaviours and at what age this ability emerges is poorly understood. We addressed this gap in the literature with two experiments involving preschoolers (E1, N = 66, 3 years 6 months to 4 years 9 months; E2, N = 119, 3 years 0 months to 6 years 10 months) who were administered novel tasks measuring Tool set, Metatool and Sequential tool use. Participants needed to solve the tasks individually, without the opportunity for social learning (except for enhancement effects). Children from 3 years of age spontaneously invented all of the types of investigated ATU behaviours. Success rates were low, suggesting that individual invention of ATU in novel tasks is still challenging for preschoolers. We discuss how future studies can use and expand our tasks to deepen our understanding of tool use and problem-solving in humans and non-human animals.

Spreading the game: An experimental study on the link between children's overimitation and their adoption, transmission, and modification of conventional information

Overimitation is hypothesized to foster the spread of conventional information within populations. The current study tested this claim by assigning 5-year-old children (N = 64) to one of two study populations based on their overimitation (overimitators [OIs] vs. non-overimitators [non-OIs]). Children were presented with conventional information in the form of novel games lacking instrumental outcomes, and we observed children's adoption, transmission, and modification of this information across two study phases. Results reveal little variation across study populations in the number of game elements that were adopted and transmitted. However, OIs were more likely to use normative language than non-OIs when transmitting game information to their peers. Furthermore, non-OIs modified the games more frequently in the initial study phase, suggesting an inverse relationship between children's overimitation and their tendency to modify conventional information. These findings indicate subtle yet coherent links between children's overimitation and their tendency to transmit and modify conventional information.