Deck 6: Cultural Transmission

Question 1

Horizontal cultural transmission refers to a situation in which information is passed:

A) specifically from mother to daughter.
B) directly from parent to offspring.
C) from adults to unrelated offspring.
D) between individuals of the same age class.
E) between individuals of different species.

Answer 1

between individuals of the same age class.

Question 2

Which of the following statements best describes the relationship between genetic evolution and cultural evolution?

A) Phenotypic effects of cultural evolution can be witnessed within a lifetime or within a few generations, while the phenotypic effects of genetic evolution occur less rapidly.
B) Neither genetic evolution nor cultural evolution can have a dramatic influence on the phenotype of an organism within a lifetime.
C) Both processes must operate for tens of thousands of generations for observable phenotypic effects to arise.
D) Cultural evolution occurs far less quickly than genetic evolution.
E) Phenotypic effects of both cultural evolution and genetic evolution are almost always evident within the lifetime of an organism.

Answer 2

Phenotypic effects of cultural evolution can be witnessed within a lifetime or within a few generations, while the phenotypic effects of genetic evolution occur less rapidly.

Question 3

Copying refers to a form of social learning in which:

A) an observer acquires a novel response by witnessing a demonstrator exhibit that response.
B) the mere presence of a model individual facilitates learning in other individuals.
C) an observer repeats the behavior exhibited by a model individual.
D) the performance of an instinctive pattern of behavior in one individual acts as a releaser for the same behavior in other individuals.
E) observers are drawn to an area containing other individuals and subsequently learn on their own.

Answer 3

an observer repeats the behavior exhibited by a model individual.

Question 4

Which of the following statements does NOT apply to Caro and Hauser's definition of teaching?

A) The observer must be naïve.
B) The observer may acquire knowledge earlier in life when taught.
C) The teacher accrues some costs by modifying its behavior.
D) The observer may learn skills that would never have been acquired in the absence of teaching.
E) Teaching provides immediate benefits for the teacher.

Question 5

Cultural transmission can be partitioned into which of the following two major subcategories?

A) social learning and teaching
B) contagion and local enhancement
C) copying and social learning
D) teaching and imitation
E) teaching and social facilitation

Question 6

Social learning, tool use, and innovation in primates are:

A) negatively correlated with executive brain volume corrected for body size.
B) negatively correlated with body size.
C) positively correlated with absolute executive brain volume.
D) positively correlated with executive brain volume corrected for body size.
E) positively correlated with body size corrected for executive brain volume.

Question 7

Which factor can be used to discriminate local enhancement and social facilitation?

A) the distance between an observer and other individuals
B) the actions of other individuals vs. the mere presence of other individuals
C) the behavior of the observer after observing other individuals
D) whether the observer interacts with a single individual or a group of individuals
E) whether the observer's response is innate or learned

Question 8

Cultural transmission is best defined as:

A) a process by which past experience modifies current behavior.
B) a means by which information is transmitted between individuals in primate groups.
C) a system of information transfer that influences an individual's phenotype via social learning or teaching.
D) the transfer of information from experienced individuals to naïve individuals.
E) the genetic transmission of traits across generations.

Question 9

Traditions are defined as situations in which:

A) old preferences persist in a group through time.
B) new preferences emerge and then become lost in a group through time.
C) new preferences emerge and then become common in a group over time.
D) old preferences become amplified through social learning.
E) old preferences are suppressed by only some individuals within a group.

Question 10

Which form of cultural transmission is operating when information is transferred across generations, but not via parent-offspring interactions?

A) vertical cultural transmission
B) altruistic cultural transmission
C) horizontal cultural transmission
D) nepotistic cultural transmission
E) oblique cultural transmission

Question 11

Describe at least two important differences between individual learning and social learning (or cultural transmission). Based on these differences, do you think social learning is unique unto itself or just a special case of individual learning? How would you support your stance on this issue?

Question 12

What features distinguish teaching from social learning? As described in the text, teachers may incur some cost while transmitting information to their offspring. Can you think of any costs that demonstrators may incur as a result of social learning?

Question 13

Compare and contrast the five different forms of social learning described in this chapter-local enhancement, social facilitation, contagion, imitation, and copying.

Question 14

In the "Modes of Cultural Transmission" section of this chapter, you were introduced to an experiment conducted by Laland and Williams (1998), which suggested that even maladaptive information could be transmitted culturally. Outside of a laboratory setting, do you think maladaptive information could be perpetuated through mechanisms of cultural transmission? In addition, devise a scenario that describes how the transfer of inaccurate or dangerous information might be avoided based on the "social learning strategies" adopted by a given set of animals.

Question 15

Read the paper by Donaldson and colleagues (2012), "The Social Side of Human-Wildlife Interaction: Wildlife Can Learn Harmful Behaviours from Each Other" (Animal Conservation, vol. 15, pp. 427-435) and a commentary by Michael Krützen in the same issue (pp. 440-441). What types of behaviors were the bottlenose dolphins learning from conspecifics? Why are these behaviors potentially maladaptive? What sorts of conservation strategies might you enact to mitigate these issues in wild bottlenose dolphin populations that live in close proximity to human recreational activity?

Question 16

Read the paper by Richerson and colleagues (2010), "Gene-Culture Coevolution in the Age of Genomics" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, vol. 107, pp. 8985-8992). First, describe what the authors mean by gene-culture coevolution. Develop a few examples of how novel environments might emerge as a consequence of cultural innovation, and how these environments might expose genes (or phenotypes) to a different set of selection pressures. How might these new selection pressures reshape patterns of behavioral variation or the average behavioral phenotype of a population? How quickly do you expect this to happen?