Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Green College. Both demographically and ecologically, humans are a remarkably successful species. This success is generally attributed to our capacity for culture. But how did our species’ extraordinary cultural capabilities evolve from its roots in animal social learning and tradition? In this seminar, Laland will provide a provisional answer. After characterizing contemporary research into animal social learning, he will focus in on a case study of stickleback learning that illustrates the strategic nature of animal copying. Laland will go on to describe the findings of an international competition (the “social learning strategies tournament”) that he organized to investigate the best way to learn. Laland will suggest that the tournament sheds light on why copying is widespread in nature, and why humans happen to be so good at it. Finally, he will end by describing some other theoretical and experimental projects suggesting feedback mechanisms that may have been instrumental to the evolution of Culture.
UBC Library Resources
Laland, K. (2004). Social learning strategies. Learning & Behaviour, 32(1), 4-14. [Link]
Reader, S. M., & Laland, K. N. (2002). Social intelligence, innovation, and enhanced brain size in primates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 99(7), 4436-4441. doi:10.1073/pnas.062041299. [Link]
Hoppitt, W., Laland, K. N., & ebrary eBooks. (2013). Social learning: An introduction to mechanisms, methods, and models. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [Link]
Laland, K. N., & Brown, G. R. (2011). Sense and nonsense: Evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
UBC Research Guides
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