Skill learning and the evolution of social learning mechanisms

Sensory cortex plasticity supports auditory social learning

Social learning (SL) through experience with conspecifics can facilitate the acquisition of many behaviors. Thus, when Mongolian gerbils are exposed to a demonstrator performing an auditory discrimination task, their subsequent task acquisition is facilitated, even in the absence of visual cues. Here, we show that transient inactivation of auditory cortex (AC) during exposure caused a significant delay in task acquisition during the subsequent practice phase, suggesting that AC activity is necessary for SL. Moreover, social exposure induced an improvement in AC neuron sensitivity to auditory task cues. The magnitude of neural change during exposure correlated with task acquisition during practice. In contrast, exposure to only auditory task cues led to poorer neurometric and behavioral outcomes. Finally, social information during exposure was encoded in the AC of observer animals. Together, our results suggest that auditory SL is supported by AC neuron plasticity occurring during social exposure and prior to behavioral performance.

One Function One Tool? A Review on Mutual Exclusivity in Tool Use Learning in Human and Non-human Species

The goal of this review is twofold: first to explore whether mutual exclusivity and functional fixedness overlap and what might be their respective specificities and second, to investigate whether mutual exclusivity as an inferential principle could be applied in other domains than language and whether it can be found in non-human species. In order to do that, we first give an overview of the representative studies of each phenomenon. We then analyze papers on tool use learning in children that studied or observed one of these phenomena. We argue that, despite their common principle -one tool one function- mutual exclusivity and functional fixedness are two distinct phenomena and need to be addressed separately in order to fully understand the mechanisms underlying social learning and cognition. In addition, mutual exclusivity appears to be applicable in other domains than language learning, namely tool use learning and is also found in non-human species when learning symbols and tools.

Social learning exploits the available auditory or visual cues

The ability to acquire a behavior can be facilitated by exposure to a conspecific demonstrator. Such social learning occurs under a range of conditions in nature. Here, we tested the idea that social learning can benefit from any available sensory cue, thereby permitting learning under different natural conditions. The ability of naïve gerbils to learn a sound discrimination task following 5 days of exposure adjacent to a demonstrator gerbil was tested in the presence or absence of visual cues. Naïve gerbils acquired the task significantly faster in either condition, as compared to controls. We also found that exposure to a demonstrator was more potent in facilitating learning, as compared to exposure to the sounds used to perform the discrimination task. Therefore, social learning was found to be flexible and equally efficient in the auditory or visual domains.

The evolution of social learning mechanisms and cultural phenomena in group foragers

BACKGROUND

Advanced cognitive abilities are widely thought to underpin cultural traditions and cumulative cultural change. In contrast, recent simulation models have found that basic social influences on learning suffice to support both cultural phenomena. In the present study we test the predictions of these models in the context of skill learning, in a model with stochastic demographics, variable group sizes, and evolved parameter values, exploring the cultural ramifications of three different social learning mechanisms.

RESULTS

Our results show that that simple forms of social learning such as local enhancement, can generate traditional differences in the context of skill learning. In contrast, we find cumulative cultural change is supported by observational learning, but not local or stimulus enhancement, which supports the idea that advanced cognitive abilities are important for generating this cultural phenomenon in the context of skill learning.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results help to explain the observation that animal cultures are widespread, but cumulative cultural change might be rare.