The burgeoning reach of animal culture

In search of animal normativity: a framework for studying social norms in non-human animals

Social norms - rules governing which behaviours are deemed appropriate or inappropriate within a given community - are typically taken to be uniquely human. Recently, this position has been challenged by a number of philosophers, cognitive scientists, and ethologists, who have suggested that social norms may also be found in certain non-human animal communities. Such claims have elicited considerable scepticism from norm cognition researchers, who doubt that any non-human animals possess the psychological capacities necessary for normative cognition. However, there is little agreement among these researchers about what these psychological prerequisites are. This makes empirical study of animal social norms difficult, since it is not clear what we are looking for and thus what should count as behavioural evidence for the presence (or absence) of social norms in animals. To break this impasse, we offer an approach that moves beyond contested psychological criteria for social norms. This approach is inspired by the animal culture research program, which has made a similar shift away from heavily psychological definitions of 'culture' to become organised around a cluster of more empirically tractable concepts of culture. Here, we propose an analogous set of constructs built around the core notion of a normative regularity, which we define as a socially maintained pattern of behavioural conformity within a community. We suggest methods for studying potential normative regularities in wild and captive primates. We also discuss the broader scientific and philosophical implications of this research program with respect to questions of human uniqueness, animal welfare and conservation.

Understanding the Role of Naive Learners in Cultural Change

AbstractA change to a population's social network is a change to the substrate of cultural transmission, affecting behavioral diversity and adaptive cultural evolution. While features of network structure such as population size and density have been well studied, less is understood about the influence of social processes such as population turnover-or the repeated replacement of individuals by naive individuals. Experimental data have led to the hypothesis that naive learners can drive cultural evolution by better assessing the relative value of behaviors, although this hypothesis has been expressed only verbally. We conducted a formal exploration of this hypothesis using a generative model that concurrently simulated its two key ingredients: social transmission and reinforcement learning. We simulated competition between high- and low-reward behaviors while varying turnover magnitude and tempo. Variation in turnover influenced changes in the distributions of cultural behaviors, irrespective of initial knowledge-state conditions. We found optimal turnover regimes that amplified the production of higher reward behaviors through two key mechanisms: repertoire composition and enhanced valuation by agents that knew both behaviors. These effects depended on network and learning parameters. Our model provides formal theoretical support for, and predictions about, the hypothesis that naive learners can shape cultural change through their enhanced sampling ability. By moving from experimental data to theory, we illuminate an underdiscussed generative process that can lead to changes in cultural behavior, arising from an interaction between social dynamics and learning.

Feathered Lectures-Evidence of Perceptual Factors on Social Learning in Kea Parrots (Nestor notabilis)

Social learning describes the acquisition of knowledge through observation of other individuals, and it is fundamental for the development of culture and traditions within human groups. Although previous studies suggest that Kea (Nestor notabilis) benefit from social learning, experimental evidence has been inconclusive, as in a recent two-action task, all perceptual factors were ignored. The present study attempts to address this by investigating social learning in Kea with a focus on social enhancement processes. In an experiment with a captive group of Kea, we investigated whether individuals that had the opportunity to observe a conspecific performing a simple task subsequently show better performance in that task than a control group without prior demonstration. This study provides a strong tendency of greater success in skill acquisition in Kea as a result of social learning. Kea that observed a conspecific solving a task showed clear evidence of perceptual factors drawing attention to the relevant parts of the experimental apparatus and manipulated these significantly more (100% of trials) than control birds (77.8% of trials). Combined with a strong trend (p = 0.056) of the test subjects solving the task more than the control subjects, this shows conclusively that Kea, at least when required to solve a task, do attend to perceptual factors of a demonstrated action.

Automatic identification of stone-handling behaviour in Japanese macaques using LabGym artificial intelligence

The latest advances in artificial intelligence technology have opened doors to the video analysis of complex behaviours. In light of this, ethologists are actively exploring the potential of these innovations to streamline the time-intensive behavioural analysis process using video data. Several tools have been developed for this purpose in primatology in the past decade. Nonetheless, each tool grapples with technical constraints. To address these limitations, we have established a comprehensive protocol designed to harness the capabilities of a cutting-edge artificial intelligence-assisted software, LabGym. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the suitability of LabGym for the analysis of primate behaviour, focusing on Japanese macaques as our model subjects. First, we developed a model that accurately detects Japanese macaques, allowing us to analyse their actions using LabGym. Our behavioural analysis model succeeded in recognising stone-handling-like behaviours on video. However, the absence of quantitative data within the specified time frame limits the ability of our study to draw definitive conclusions regarding the quality of the behavioural analysis. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, this study represents the first instance of applying the LabGym tool specifically for the analysis of primate behaviours, with our model focusing on the automated recognition and categorisation of specific behaviours in Japanese macaques. It lays the groundwork for future research in this promising field to complexify our model using the latest version of LabGym and associated tools, such as multi-class detection and interactive behaviour analysis.

Mapping nut-cracking in a new population of wild capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) at Ubajara National Park, Brazil

Populations of bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) vary in their tool use behaviors, with some of this divergence regarded as culturally determined. The use of stone tools, primarily to crack open encased foods, is widespread among bearded capuchins living in dry habitats (Caatinga and Cerrado). Significant diversity in targets, processed foods, material, and size of tools is observed across populations. However, so far, only a few sites have been systematically studied, and we are still distant from a representative picture of the range of variation in capuchins' culture. In this study, we did a systematic assessment of stone tool use sites in the Ubajara National Park (UNP), in the Caatinga region of Ceará, Brazil, recording and measuring stone tools, processed foods, and available lithic resources as part of an extensive comparative research, the CapCult project. We found indirect and direct evidence that capuchin monkeys at UNP customarily use hammerstones and anvils to process at least two species of palm nuts, macauba (Acrocomia aculeata) and the harder babaçu (Attalea speciosa). Most of the anvils were rock surfaces and had leftovers of only one palm nut species. The hammerstones used to process both palm nuts were not significantly different in weight, although the ones used for Ac. aculeata were longer. We found a higher frequency of nut-cracking sites in the drier lowland area of the park, reflecting differences in the density of the most common palm species, Ac. aculeata, and availability of raw stone material. The stone tool use observed in UNP is within the scope of previously reported in savannah capuchin populations. Our study widens the knowledge of stone tool-use diversity in wild capuchin monkeys, which could contribute to shaping conservation policy, including cultural traits.

A close look at sociality in DSM criteria

PURPOSE

The importance of sociality in psychology and psychotherapy is quite undisputed; however, this construct risks being underestimated in psychiatric nosography. The aim of the review was to assess the relevance of sociality in DSM 5 criteria.

METHOD

Sociality-laden criteria of 192 selected DSM categories have been identified through a textual grid. Second, the criteria have been classified into 6 categories, i.e., (1) Affiliation and Attachment (AA), (2) Social Communication (SC), (3) Perception and Understanding of Others (PUO), (4) Culture, (5) Clinical Significance Criterion (CSC) (6), and No Specific Construct (NSC).

RESULTS

13% of all mental disorders mention AA in their criteria. 8.8% of all mental disorders mention SC; 8.8% of all mental disorders mention PUO in their criteria. 15% of all mental disorders mention culture in their criteria (exclusively ex negativo though). 40% of mental disorders mention non-specific sociality (NSC) in their criteria. CSC is mentioned in 85% of mental disorders. Personality disorders have the highest "concentration" of sociality mentions throughout the DSM categories.

CONCLUSIONS

The overall results suggest that DSM criteria offer a confused account of sociality. We believe that the descriptive approach is the underlying reason. We suggest that in the long run a theory-laden approach to sociality, informed by evolutionary insights about motivations, could be of help.

Population turnover, behavioral conservatism, and rates of cultural evolution

Cultural evolution facilitates behavioral adaptation in many species. The pace of cultural evolution can be accelerated by population turnover, where newcomers (immigrants or juvenile recruits) introduce adaptive cultural traits into their new group. However, where newcomers are naïve to the challenges of their new group, population turnover could potentially slow the rate of cultural evolution. Here, we model cultural evolution with population turnover and show that even if turnover results in the replacement of experienced individuals with naïve ones, turnover can still accelerate cultural evolution if (1) the rate of social learning is more than twice as fast as the turnover rate and (b) newcomers are more likely to learn socially than behaviorally conservative existing group members. Although population turnover is a relatively simple factor, it is common to all animal societies, and variation in the turnover rate may potentially play an important role in explaining variation in the occurrence and rates of adaptive cultural evolution across species.

Cultural evolution: A review of theoretical challenges

The rapid growth of cultural evolutionary science, its expansion into numerous fields, its use of diverse methods, and several conceptual problems have outpaced corollary developments in theory and philosophy of science. This has led to concern, exemplified in results from a recent survey conducted with members of the Cultural Evolution Society, that the field lacks 'knowledge synthesis', is poorly supported by 'theory', has an ambiguous relation to biological evolution and uses key terms (e.g. 'culture', 'social learning', 'cumulative culture') in ways that hamper operationalization in models, experiments and field studies. Although numerous review papers in the field represent and categorize its empirical findings, the field's theoretical challenges receive less critical attention even though challenges of a theoretical or conceptual nature underlie most of the problems identified by Cultural Evolution Society members. Guided by the heterogeneous 'grand challenges' emergent in this survey, this paper restates those challenges and adopts an organizational style requisite to discussion of them. The paper's goal is to contribute to increasing conceptual clarity and theoretical discernment around the most pressing challenges facing the field of cultural evolutionary science. It will be of most interest to cultural evolutionary scientists, theoreticians, philosophers of science and interdisciplinary researchers.

Social dynamics of vervet monkeys are dependent upon group identity

Traditions are widespread across the animal realm. Here, we investigated inter-group variability of social dynamics in wild vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus). We analyzed 84,704 social interactions involving 247 individuals collected over nine years in three neighboring groups of wild vervet monkeys. We found that in one group - Ankhase - individuals had a higher propensity to be affiliative (i.e., sociality) and grooming interactions were more reciprocal. Despite yearly fluctuations in sociality, differences between groups remained stable over time. Moreover, our statistical model predictions confirmed that these findings were maintained for similar sex ratios, age distributions, and group sizes. Strikingly, our results suggested that dispersing males adapted their sociality to the sociality of the group they integrated with. As a whole, our study sheds light on the existence of stable social dynamics dependent upon group identity in wild vervet monkeys and suggests that at least part of this variability is socially mediated.

Norm Dynamics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Social Norm Emergence, Persistence, and Change

Social norms are the glue that holds society together, yet our knowledge of them remains heavily intellectually siloed. This article provides an interdisciplinary review of the emerging field of norm dynamics by integrating research across the social sciences through a cultural-evolutionary lens. After reviewing key distinctions in theory and method, we discuss research on norm psychology-the neural and cognitive underpinnings of social norm learning and acquisition. We then overview how norms emerge and spread through intergenerational transmission, social networks, and group-level ecological and historical factors. Next, we discuss multilevel factors that lead norms to persist, change, or erode over time. We also consider cultural mismatches that can arise when a changing environment leads once-beneficial norms to become maladaptive. Finally, we discuss potential future research directions and the implications of norm dynamics for theory and policy.

Animal cognition and culture mediate predator-prey interactions

Predator-prey ecology and the study of animal cognition and culture have emerged as independent disciplines. Research combining these disciplines suggests that both animal cognition and culture can shape the outcomes of predator-prey interactions and their influence on ecosystems. We review the growing body of work that weaves animal cognition or culture into predator-prey ecology, and argue that both cognition and culture are significant but poorly understood mechanisms mediating how predators structure ecosystems. We present a framework exploring how previous experiences with the predation process creates feedback loops that alter the predation sequence. Cognitive and cultural predator-prey ecology offers ecologists new lenses through which to understand species interactions, their ecological consequences, and novel methods to conserve wildlife in a changing world.

Culturally determined interspecies communication between humans and honeyguides

Species interactions that vary across environments can create geographical mosaics of genetic coevolution. However, traits mediating species interactions are sometimes culturally inherited. Here we show that traditions of interspecies communication between people and wild birds vary in a culturally determined geographical mosaic. Honey hunters in different parts of Africa use different calls to communicate with greater honeyguides (Indicator indicator) that lead them to bees' nests. We show experimentally that honeyguides in Tanzania and Mozambique discriminate among honey hunters' calls, responding more readily to local than to foreign calls. This was not explained by variation in sound transmission and instead suggests that honeyguides learn local human signals. We discuss the forces stabilizing and diversifying interspecies communication traditions, and the potential for cultural coevolution between species.

Long-term memory of experienced jays facilitates problem-solving by naïve group members in the wild

Long-term memory affects animal fitness, especially in social species. In these species, the memory of group members facilitates the acquisition of novel foraging skills through social learning when naïve individuals observe and imitate the successful foraging behavior. Long-term memory and social learning also provide the framework for cultural behavior, a trait found in humans but very few other animal species. In birds, little is known about the duration of long-term memories for complex foraging skills, or the impact of long-term memory on group members. We tested whether wild jays remembered a complex foraging task more than 3 years after their initial experience and quantified the effect of this memory on naïve jay behavior. Experienced jays remembered how to solve the task and their behavior had significant positive effects on interactions by naïve group members at the task. This suggests that natural selection may favor long-term memory of solutions to foraging problems to facilitate the persistence of foraging skills that are specifically useful in the local environment in social birds with long lifespans and overlapping generations.

Overcoming bias in the comparison of human language and animal communication

Human language is a powerful communicative and cognitive tool. Scholars have long sought to characterize its uniqueness, but each time a property is proposed to set human language apart (e.g., reference, syntax), some (attenuated) version of that property is found in animals. Recently, the uniqueness argument has shifted from linguistic rules to cognitive capacities underlying them. Scholars argue that human language is unique because it relies on ostension and inference, while animal communication depends on simple associations and largely hardwired signals. Such characterizations are often borne out in published data, but these empirical findings are driven by radical differences in the ways animal and human communication are studied. The field of animal communication has been dramatically shaped by the "code model," which imagines communication as involving information packets that are encoded, transmitted, decoded, and interpreted. This framework standardized methods for studying meaning in animal signals, but it does not allow for the nuance, ambiguity, or contextual variation seen in humans. The code model is insidious. It is rarely referenced directly, but it significantly shapes how we study animals. To compare animal communication and human language, we must acknowledge biases resulting from the different theoretical models used. By incorporating new approaches that break away from searching for codes, we may find that animal communication and human language are characterized by differences of degree rather than kind.

Ponds as experimental arenas for studying animal movement: current research and future prospects

Animal movement is a multifaceted process that occurs for multiple reasons with powerful consequences for food web and ecosystem dynamics. New paradigms and technical innovations have recently pervaded the field, providing increasingly powerful means to deliver fine-scale movement data, attracting renewed interest. Specifically in the aquatic environment, tracking with acoustic telemetry now provides integral spatiotemporal information to follow individual movements in the wild. Yet, this technology also holds great promise for experimental studies, enhancing our ability to truly establish cause-and-effect relationships. Here, we argue that ponds with well-defined borders (i.e. "islands in a sea of land") are particularly well suited for this purpose. To support our argument, we also discuss recent experiences from studies conducted in an innovative experimental infrastructure, composed of replicated ponds equipped with modern aquatic telemetry systems that allow for unparalleled insights into the movement patterns of individual animals.

What we know and don't know about great ape cultural communication in the wild

Following the first descriptions of culture in primates, widespread agreement has developed that the term can be applied to nonhumans as group-specific, socially learned behaviors. While behaviors such as those involving extractive tool use have been researched intensively, we propose that behaviors that are more subtle, less likely to be ecologically constrained, and more likely to be socially shaped, such as cultural forms of communication, provide compelling evidence of culture in nonhuman primates. Additionally, cultural forms of communication can provide novel insights into animal cognition such as the capacity for conformity, conventionalized meanings, arbitrariness in signal forms, and even symbolism. In this paper we focus on evidence from studies conducted on wild great apes. First, we provide a thorough review of what exactly we do know, and by extension don't know, about great ape cultural communication. We argue that detailed research on both vocal and gestural communication in wild great apes shows a more nuanced and variable repertoire than once assumed, with increasing support for group-specific variation. Second, we discuss the relevance of great ape cultural communication and its potential for illustrating evolutionary continuity for human-like cultural attributes, namely cumulative culture and symbolism. In sum, a concerted effort to examine cultural forms of communication in great apes could reveal novel evidence for cultural capacities that have thus far been heavily debated in the literature and can simultaneously contribute to an improved understanding of the complex minds of our closest living relatives.

From real-time adaptation to social learning in robot ecosystems

While evolutionary robotics can create novel morphologies and controllers that are well-adapted to their environments, learning is still the most efficient way to adapt to changes that occur on shorter time scales. Learning proposals for evolving robots to date have focused on new individuals either learning a controller from scratch, or building on the experience of direct ancestors and/or robots with similar configurations. Here we propose and demonstrate a novel means for social learning of gait patterns, based on sensorimotor synchronization. Using movement patterns of other robots as input can drive nonlinear decentralized controllers such as CPGs into new limit cycles, hence encouraging diversity of movement patterns. Stable autonomous controllers can then be locked in, which we demonstrate using a quasi-Hebbian feedback scheme. We propose that in an ecosystem of robots evolving in a heterogeneous environment, such a scheme may allow for the emergence of generalist task-solvers from a population of specialists.

Nostalgia Promotes Parents' Tradition Transfer to Children by Strengthening Parent-Child Relationship Closeness

Parental tradition transfer to children is pivotal for their socialization, identity formation, and culture perpetuation. But what motivates parents to transfer traditions to their children? We hypothesized that nostalgia, an emotion strengthening interpersonal bonds, would promote tradition transfer through parent-child relationship closeness. We tested these hypotheses using cross-sectional (Studies 1 and 4), cross-lagged (Study 2 and preregistered Study 5), and experimental (Studies 3 and 6) designs. In Studies 1 to 3, nostalgia was associated with, had lagged effect on, and promoted tradition transfer. In Studies 4-6, parent-child relationship closeness mediated the link between nostalgia and tradition transfer. The findings enrich our understanding of the vertical transmission of knowledge, customs, and values, offering insight into how intergenerational bonds are reinforced and cultural heritage is maintained.

Emulative learning of a two-step task in free-ranging domestic pigs

Previous research showed that young domestic pigs learn through observation of conspecifics by using social learning mechanisms like social facilitation, enhancement effects, and even object movement re-enactment. The latter suggests some form of emulative learning in which the observer learns about the object's movements and affordances. As it remains unclear whether pigs need a social agent to learn about objects, we provided 36 free-ranging domestic pigs with varying degrees of social to non-social demonstrations on how to solve a two-step manipulative foraging task: observers watched either a conspecific or a human demonstrator, or self-moving objects ("ghost control"), or a ghost control accompanied by an inactive conspecific bystander. In addition, 22 subjects that were previously tested without any demonstrator were used as a non-observer control. To solve the task, the subjects had to first remove a plug from its recess to then be able to slide a cover to the side, which would lay open a food compartment. Observers interacted longer with the relevant objects (plugs) and were more successful in solving the task compared to non-observers. We found no differences with regard to success between the four observer groups, indicating that the pigs mainly learned about the apparatus rather than about the actions. As the only common feature of the different demonstrations was the movement of the plug and the cover, we conclude the observer pigs learned primarily by emulation, suggesting that social agents are not necessary for pigs when learning through observation.

Type-2 diabetes alters hippocampal neural oscillations and disrupts synchrony between hippocampus and cortex

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) increases the risk of neurological diseases, yet how brain oscillations change as age and T2DM interact is not well characterized. To delineate the age and diabetic effect on neurophysiology, we recorded local field potentials with multichannel electrodes spanning the somatosensory cortex and hippocampus (HPC) under urethane anesthesia in diabetic and normoglycemic control mice, at 200 and 400 days of age. We analyzed the signal power of brain oscillations, brain state, sharp wave associate ripples (SPW-Rs), and functional connectivity between the cortex and HPC. We found that while both age and T2DM were correlated with a breakdown in long-range functional connectivity and reduced neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus and subventricular zone, T2DM further slowed brain oscillations and reduced theta-gamma coupling. Age and T2DM also prolonged the duration of SPW-Rs and increased gamma power during SPW-R phase. Our results have identified potential electrophysiological substrates of hippocampal changes associated with T2DM and age. The perturbed brain oscillation features and diminished neurogenesis may underlie T2DM-accelerated cognitive impairment.

Whole-genome long-read sequencing downsampling and its effect on variant calling precision and recall

Advances in long-read sequencing (LRS) technology continue to make whole-genome sequencing more complete, affordable, and accurate. LRS provides significant advantages over short-read sequencing approaches, including phased de novo genome assembly, access to previously excluded genomic regions, and discovery of more complex structural variants (SVs) associated with disease. Limitations remain with respect to cost, scalability, and platform-dependent read accuracy and the tradeoffs between sequence coverage and sensitivity of variant discovery are important experimental considerations for the application of LRS. We compare the genetic variant calling precision and recall of Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) and PacBio HiFi platforms over a range of sequence coverages. For read-based applications, LRS sensitivity begins to plateau around 12-fold coverage with a majority of variants called with reasonable accuracy (F1 score above 0.5), and both platforms perform well for SV detection. Genome assembly increases variant calling precision and recall of SVs and indels in HiFi datasets with HiFi outperforming ONT in quality as measured by the F1 score of assembly-based variant callsets. While both technologies continue to evolve, our work offers guidance to design cost-effective experimental strategies that do not compromise on discovering novel biology.

Social learning mechanisms shape transmission pathways through replicate local social networks of wild birds

The emergence and spread of novel behaviours via social learning can lead to rapid population-level changes whereby the social connections between individuals shape information flow. However, behaviours can spread via different mechanisms and little is known about how information flow depends on the underlying learning rule individuals employ. Here, comparing four different learning mechanisms, we simulated behavioural spread on replicate empirical social networks of wild great tits and explored the relationship between individual sociality and the order of behavioural acquisition. Our results reveal that, for learning rules dependent on the sum and strength of social connections to informed individuals, social connectivity was related to the order of acquisition, with individuals with increased social connectivity and reduced social clustering adopting new behaviours faster. However, when behavioural adoption depends on the ratio of an individuals' social connections to informed versus uninformed individuals, social connectivity was not related to the order of acquisition. Finally, we show how specific learning mechanisms may limit behavioural spread within networks. These findings have important implications for understanding whether and how behaviours are likely to spread across social systems, the relationship between individuals' sociality and behavioural acquisition, and therefore for the costs and benefits of sociality.

Cultural evolution in the science of culture and cultural evolution

My critical review [1] elicited a welcome diversity of perspectives across the 12 commentaries now published [2-13]. In total 28 co-authors were inspired to contribute. In addition to engaging with the critical perspectives of my review, several of the commentaries take the debates and discussions into insightful and potentially important supplementary domains that I highlight in what follows. I have extracted a number of major themes in which I detected overlaps in the foci of different commentaries, and I use these to organise my replies. I hope that our shared efforts will constitute some degree of 'cultural evolution' in our science, as suggested in the title of this reply to commentaries.

Flexible tool set transport in Goffin's cockatoos

The use of tool sets constitutes one of the most elaborate examples of animal technology, and reports of it in nature are limited to chimpanzees and Goffin's cockatoos. Although tool set use in Goffin's was only recently discovered, we know that chimpanzees flexibly transport tool sets, depending on their need. Flexible tool set transport can be considered full evidence for identification of a genuine tool set, as the selection of the second tool is not just a response to the outcomes of the use of the first tool but implies recognizing the need for both tools before using any of them (thus, categorizing both tools together as a tool set). In three controlled experiments, we tested captive Goffin's in tasks inspired by the termite fishing of Goualougo Triangle's chimpanzees. Thereby, we show that some Goffin's can innovate the use and flexibly use and transport a new tool set for immediate future use; therefore, their sequential tool use is more than the sum of its parts. VIDEO ABSTRACT.

Six adult male rhesus monkeys did not learn from the choices of a conspecific shown in videos

There is substantial evidence of group-specific behaviors in wild animals that are thought to be socially transmitted. Yet experimental studies with monkeys have reported conflicting evidence on the extent to which monkeys learn by observing their conspecifics. In this study, we tested the feasibility of using pre-recorded video demonstrations to investigate social learning from conspecifics in rhesus monkeys. With training, monkeys gradually learned to respond correctly following videos of a demonstrator, however, follow-up experiments revealed that this was not due to learning from the demonstrator monkey. In generalization tests with videos that were horizontally reversed, monkeys continued responding to the location they had associated with each video, rather than matching the new choice location shown in the mirrored video. When the task was changed to make location irrelevant, such that monkeys could choose correctly only by selecting the same image selected by the demonstrator in the video, observer monkeys did not exceed chance in 12,000 training trials. Because monkeys readily learn to follow nonsocial visual cues presented on a monitor to guide image choice, their inability to learn from a demonstrator here indicates substantial limitations in the capacity for social learning from videos. Furthermore, these findings encourage deeper consideration of what monkeys perceive when presented with video stimuli on computer screens.

Morphological computation and decentralized learning in a swarm of sterically interacting robots

Whereas naturally occurring swarms thrive when crowded, physical interactions in robotic swarms are either avoided or carefully controlled, thus limiting their operational density. Here, we present a mechanical design rule that allows robots to act in a collision-dominated environment. We introduce Morphobots, a robotic swarm platform developed to implement embodied computation through a morpho-functional design. By engineering a three-dimensional printed exoskeleton, we encode a reorientation response to an external body force (such as gravity) or a surface force (such as a collision). We show that the force orientation response is generic and can augment existing swarm robotic platforms (e.g., Kilobots) as well as custom robots even 10 times larger. At the individual level, the exoskeleton improves motility and stability and also allows encoding of two contrasting dynamical behaviors in response to an external force or a collision (including collision with a wall or a movable obstacle and on a dynamically tilting plane). This force orientation response adds a mechanical layer to the robot's sense-act cycle at the swarm level, leveraging steric interactions for collective phototaxis when crowded. Enabling collisions also promotes information flow, facilitating online distributed learning. Each robot runs an embedded algorithm that ultimately optimizes collective performance. We identify an effective parameter that controls the force orientation response and explore its implications in swarms that transition from dilute to crowded. Experimenting with physical swarms (of up to 64 robots) and simulated swarms (of up to 8192 agents) shows that the effect of morphological computation increases with growing swarm size.

What made us "hunter-gatherers of words"

This paper makes three interconnected claims: (i) the "human condition" cannot be captured by evolutionary narratives that reduce it to a recent 'cognitive modernity', nor by narratives that eliminates all cognitive differences between us and out closest extinct relatives, (ii) signals from paleogenomics, especially coming from deserts of introgression but also from signatures of positive selection, point to the importance of mutations that impact neurodevelopment, plausibly leading to temperamental differences, which may impact cultural evolutionary trajectories in specific ways, and (iii) these trajectories are expected to affect the language phenotypes, modifying what is being learned and how it is put to use. In particular, I hypothesize that these different trajectories influence the development of symbolic systems, the flexible ways in which symbols combine, and the size and configurations of the communities in which these systems are put to use.

Conformity in mate choice, the overlooked social component of animal and human culture

Although conformity as a major driver for human cultural evolution is a well-accepted and intensely studied phenomenon, its importance for non-human animal culture has been largely overlooked until recently. This limited for decades the possibility of studying the roots of human culture. Here, we provide a historical review of the study of conformity in both humans and non-human animals. We identify gaps in knowledge and propose an evolutionary route towards the sophisticated cultural processes that characterize humanity. A landmark in the study of conformity is Solomon Asch's famous experiment on humans in 1955. By contrast, interest in conformity among evolutionary biologists has only become salient since the turn of the new millennium. A striking result of our review is that, although studies of conformity have examined many biological contexts, only one looked at mate choice. This is surprising because mate choice is probably the only context in which conformity has self-reinforcing advantages across generations. Within a metapopulation, i.e. a group of subpopulations connected by dispersing individuals, dispersers able to conform to the local preference for a given type of mate have a strong and multigenerational fitness advantage. This is because once females within one subpopulation locally show a bias for one type of males, immigrant females who do not conform to the local trend have sons, grandsons, etc. of the non-preferred phenotype, which negatively and cumulatively affects fitness over generations in a process reminiscent of the Fisher runaway process. This led us to suggest a sex-driven origin of conformity, indicating a possible evolutionary route towards animal and human culture that is rooted in the basic, and thus ancient, social constraints acting on mating preferences within a metapopulation. In a generic model, we show that dispersal among subpopulations within a metapopulation can effectively maintain independent Fisher runaway processes within subpopulations, while favouring the evolution of social learning and conformity at the metapopulation scale; both being essential for the evolution of long-lasting local traditions. The proposed evolutionary route to social learning and conformity casts surprising light on one of the major processes that much later participated in making us human. We further highlight several research avenues to define the spectrum of conformity better, and to account for its complexity. Future studies of conformity should incorporate experimental manipulation of group majority. We also encourage the study of potential links between conformity and mate copying, animal aggregations, and collective actions. Moreover, validation of the sex-driven origin of conformity will rest on the capacity of human and evolutionary sciences to investigate jointly the origin of social learning and conformity. This constitutes a stimulating common agenda and militates for a rapprochement between these two currently largely independent research areas.

From whom do animals learn? A meta-analysis on model-based social learning

Social learning via the observation of or interaction with other individuals can allow animals to obtain information about the local environment. Once social information is obtained, animals may or may not act on and use this information. Animals may learn from others selectively based on particular characteristics (e.g., familiarity, age, dominance) of the information provider, which is thought to maximize the benefits of social learning. Biases to copy certain individuals over others plays an important role in how information is transmitted and used among individuals, and can influence the emergence of group-level behaviors (i.e., traditions). Two underlying factors can affect from whom animals learn: the population social dynamics - with whom you associate (e.g., familiar), and status of the demonstrator (e.g., dominant). We systematically surveyed the literature and conducted a meta-analysis to test whether demonstrator characteristics consistently influence social learning, and if social dynamics strategies differ from status strategies in their influence on social learning. We extracted effect sizes from papers that used an observer-demonstrator paradigm to test if the characteristics of the individual providing social information (i.e., the demonstrator) influence social information use by observers. We obtained 139 effect sizes on 33 species from 54 experiments. First, we found an effect of experimental design on the influence of demonstrator characteristics on social learning: between-subject designs had stronger effects compared to within-subject designs. Second, we found that demonstrator characteristics do indeed influence social learning. Characteristics based on social dynamics and characteristics based on status had a significant effect on social learning, especially when copying familiar and kin demonstrators. These results highlight the role that demonstrator characteristics play on social learning, which can have implications for the formation and establishment of behavioural traditions in animals.

Cumulative Culture

Abstract: Although the spread of innovations through social learning is well documented in animals, resulting animal cultures have remained simple without an increase in complexity over time. Human culture, in contrast, evolves constantly and is unparalleled in terms of complexity and diversity. Why only human culture is cumulative is the subject of ongoing debates, but the most prevalent suggestions are that animals lack high-fidelity transmission and complex innovations. This article examines how the combination of two factors may have helped humans overcome these limitations: first, our having a big brain, inherited from our great-ape-like ancestors; second, our reliance on extensive allomaternal care that evolved convergently with other cooperatively breeding species. We provide support for this suggestion with recent evidence from cooperatively breeding common marmosets ( Callithrix jacchus), showing that motivation for cooperation can trump intelligence when it comes to solving problems and information transmission to the next generation.

Blind alleys and fruitful pathways in the comparative study of cultural cognition

A mere few decades ago, culture was thought a unique human attribute. Evidence to the contrary accumulated through the latter part of the twentieth century and has exploded in the present one, demonstrating the transmission of traditions through social learning across all principal vertebrate taxa and even invertebrates, notably insects. The scope of human culture is nevertheless highly distinctive. What makes our cultural capacities and their cognitive underpinnings so different? In this article I argue that in behavioural scientists' endeavours to answer this question, fruitful research pathways and their ensuing discoveries have come to exist alongside popular, yet in the light of current empirical evidence, highly questionable scenarios and even scientific blind alleys. I particularly re-evaluate theories that rely on the centrality of a supposed uniquely human capacity for imitative copying in explaining the distinctive capacity for massive cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) in our species. The most extreme versions of this perspective suffer logical incoherence and severe limits on scientific testability. By contrast the field has generated a range of rigorous observational and experimental methodologies that have revealed both long-term cultural fidelity and limited forms of CCE in non-human species. Attention now turns to directly investigating the scope, limits and underlying cognition of non-human versus human CCE, with a broader approach to factors additional to cultural transmission, notably the role of invention, innovation and evolved motivational biases underlying the scope of CCE in the species studied.

Problem-solving in groups of common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus): more than the sum of its parts

Human hypercooperativity and the emergence of division of labor enables us to solve problems not only effectively within a group but also collectively. Collective problem-solving occurs when groups perform better than the additive performance of separate individuals. Currently, it is unknown whether this is unique to humans. To investigate the evolutionary origin of collective problem-solving and potential precursors, we propose a continuum of group effects on problem-solving, from simple to complex ones, eventually culminating in collective problem-solving. We tested captive common marmosets with a series of problem-solving tasks, either alone or in a group. To test whether the performance of a group was more than the sum of its parts, we compared real groups to virtual groups (pooled scores of animals tested alone). Marmosets in real groups were both more likely to solve problems than marmosets within the virtual groups and to do so faster. Although individuals within real groups approached the problem faster, a reduction in neophobia was not sufficient to explain the greater success. Success within real groups arose because animals showed higher perseverance, especially after a fellow group member had found the solution in complex tasks. These results are consistent with the idea that group problem-solving evolved alongside a continuum, with performance improving beyond baseline as societies move from social tolerance to opportunities for diffusion of information to active exchange of information. We suggest that increasing interdependence and the adoption of cooperative breeding pushed our ancestors up this scale.

Evidence from sperm whale clans of symbolic marking in non-human cultures

Culture, a pillar of the remarkable ecological success of humans, is increasingly recognized as a powerful force structuring nonhuman animal populations. A key gap between these two types of culture is quantitative evidence of symbolic markers-seemingly arbitrary traits that function as reliable indicators of cultural group membership to conspecifics. Using acoustic data collected from 23 Pacific Ocean locations, we provide quantitative evidence that certain sperm whale acoustic signals exhibit spatial patterns consistent with a symbolic marker function. Culture segments sperm whale populations into behaviorally distinct clans, which are defined based on dialects of stereotyped click patterns (codas). We classified 23,429 codas into types using contaminated mixture models and hierarchically clustered coda repertoires into seven clans based on similarities in coda usage; then we evaluated whether coda usage varied with geographic distance within clans or with spatial overlap between clans. Similarities in within-clan usage of both "identity codas" (coda types diagnostic of clan identity) and "nonidentity codas" (coda types used by multiple clans) decrease as space between repertoire recording locations increases. However, between-clan similarity in identity, but not nonidentity, coda usage decreases as clan spatial overlap increases. This matches expectations if sympatry is related to a measurable pressure to diversify to make cultural divisions sharper, thereby providing evidence that identity codas function as symbolic markers of clan identity. Our study provides quantitative evidence of arbitrary traits, resembling human ethnic markers, conveying cultural identity outside of humans, and highlights remarkable similarities in the distributions of human ethnolinguistic groups and sperm whale clans.

Stone tools differences across three capuchin monkey populations: food's physical properties, ecology, and culture

Robust capuchin monkeys (Sapajus) are known for processing mechanically challenging foods, having morphological adaptations to do so. However, several populations go beyond body limitations by using stone tools to expand their food range. Those populations use stones in a variety of ways, goals, and with different frequencies. Stone tool size correlates with the food's resistance within some populations. However, we have no detailed comparisons to identify if this correlation is the same across populations. This study described and compared stone raw material availability, food's physical properties (hardness and elasticity), and stone tool weight in three populations of bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus), including a newly described site (Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, CVNP). The differences we observed regarding stone tool weight selection among sites were not correlated to the food's physical properties we analyzed. Lithic resource availability could partly explain some differences in the stone tools used. However, the tool weight differences are larger than the raw material variance across sites, meaning some distinctions are possible behavioral traditions, such as the same fruit (Hymenaea) being processed with bigger than needed tools in CVNP than in the other two sites. Capuchin monkey behavioral variability in stone tool use can be caused by several interacting factors, from ecological to cultural.

Viewing animal migration through a social lens

Evidence of social learning is growing across the animal kingdom. Researchers have long hypothesized that social interactions play a key role in many animal migrations, but strong empirical support is scarce except in a few unique systems and species. In this review, we aim to catalyze advances in the study of social migrations by synthesizing research across disciplines and providing a framework for understanding when, how, and why social influences shape the decisions animals make during migration. Integrating research across the fields of social learning and migration ecology will advance our understanding of the complex behavioral phenomena of animal migration and help to inform conservation of animal migrations in a changing world.

Cumulative cultural evolution and mechanisms for cultural selection in wild bird songs

Cumulative cultural evolution, the accumulation of sequential changes within a single socially learned behaviour that results in improved function, is prominent in humans and has been documented in experimental studies of captive animals and managed wild populations. Here, we provide evidence that cumulative cultural evolution has occurred in the learned songs of Savannah sparrows. In a first step, “click trains” replaced “high note clusters” over a period of three decades. We use mathematical modelling to show that this replacement is consistent with the action of selection, rather than drift or frequency-dependent bias. Generations later, young birds elaborated the “click train” song form by adding more clicks. We show that the new songs with more clicks elicit stronger behavioural responses from both males and females. Therefore, we suggest that a combination of social learning, innovation, and sexual selection favoring a specific discrete trait was followed by directional sexual selection that resulted in naturally occurring cumulative cultural evolution in the songs of this wild animal population.

Cumulative cultural evolution is ubiquitous in humans, but is rarely observed in non-human animals. Here, Williams et al. report elaboration of songs over several decades in Savannah sparrows, consistent with cumulative cultural evolution.

Landscaping the Behavioural Ecology of Primate Stone Tool Use

Ecology is fundamental in the development, transmission, and perpetuity of primate technology. Previous studies on tool site selection have addressed the relevance of targeted resources and raw materials for tools, but few have considered the broader foraging landscape. In this landscape-scale study of the ecological contexts of wild chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) tool use, we investigated the conditions required for nut-cracking to occur and persist in discrete locations at the long-term field site of Bossou, Guinea. We examined this at three levels: selection, frequency of use, and inactivity. We collected data on plant foods, nut trees, and raw materials using transect and quadrat methods, and conducted forest-wide surveys to map the location of nests and watercourses. We analysed data at the quadrat level (n = 82) using generalised linear models and descriptive statistics. We found that, further to the presence of a nut tree and availability of raw materials, abundance of food-providing trees as well as proximity to nest sites were significant predictors of nut-cracking occurrence. This suggests that the spatial distribution of nut-cracking sites is mediated by the broader behavioural landscape and is influenced by non-extractive foraging of perennial resources and non-foraging activities. Additionally, the number of functional tools was greater at sites with higher nut-cracking frequency, and was negatively correlated with site inactivity. Our research indicates that the technological landscape of Bossou chimpanzees shares affinities with the ‘favoured places’ model of hominin site formation, providing a comparative framework for reconstructing landscape-scale patterns of ancient human behaviour. A French translation of this abstract is provided in theelectronic supplementary information: EMS 2.

Social Neuro AI: Social Interaction as the “Dark Matter” of AI

This article introduces a three-axis framework indicating how AI can be informed by biological examples of social learning mechanisms. We argue that the complex human cognitive architecture owes a large portion of its expressive power to its ability to engage in social and cultural learning. However, the field of AI has mostly embraced a solipsistic perspective on intelligence. We thus argue that social interactions not only are largely unexplored in this field but also are an essential element of advanced cognitive ability, and therefore constitute metaphorically the “dark matter” of AI. In the first section, we discuss how social learning plays a key role in the development of intelligence. We do so by discussing social and cultural learning theories and empirical findings from social neuroscience. Then, we discuss three lines of research that fall under the umbrella of Social NeuroAI and can contribute to developing socially intelligent embodied agents in complex environments. First, neuroscientific theories of cognitive architecture, such as the global workspace theory and the attention schema theory, can enhance biological plausibility and help us understand how we could bridge individual and social theories of intelligence. Second, intelligence occurs in time as opposed to over time, and this is naturally incorporated by dynamical systems. Third, embodiment has been demonstrated to provide more sophisticated array of communicative signals. To conclude, we discuss the example of active inference, which offers powerful insights for developing agents that possess biological realism, can self-organize in time, and are socially embodied.

Conservation and management of the culture of bears

Culture is widely accepted as an important social factor present across a wide range of species. Bears have a culture as defined as behavioral traditions inherited through social learning usually from mothers to offspring. Successful bear cultures can enhance fitness and resource exploitation benefits. In contrast, some bear cultures related to response to humans and human‐related foods can be maladaptive and result in reduced fitness and direct mortality. In environments with minimal human influence most bear culture has evolved over generations to be beneficial and well adapted to enhance fitness. However, most bears across the world do not live in areas with minimal human influence and in these areas, bear culture is often changed by bear interactions with humans, usually to the detriment of bear survival. We highlight the importance of identifying unique bear cultural traits that allow efficient use of local resources and the value of careful management to preserve these adaptive cultural behaviors. It is also important to select against maladaptive cultural behaviors that are usually related to humans in order to reduce human–bear conflicts and high bear mortality. We use examples from Yellowstone National Park to demonstrate how long‐term management to reduce maladaptive bear cultures related to humans has resulted in healthy bear populations and a low level of human–bear conflict in spite of a high number of Yellowstone National Park visitors in close association with bears.