Chapter 6- Cultural transmission

Question 1

Tandem runs

Answer 1

When a food source is discovered, pairs of ants turn their heads toward it (this is called a tandem run). During a tandem run, ants seem to signal one another about direction and speed.

Question 2

Tandem runs and teaching in ants

Answer 2

*Goal- to test whether tandem runs involve teaching
*Methods- marked pairs of ants- one ant marked with one color knew the location of the food, but they other didn’t. The ant that knew where the food was located led the tandem run, and the naive ant followed and tapped the legs of the leader.
*Results- The leaders would only continue tandem runs when the other ant tapped on their legs. Leader ants also experienced a cost, because they could get food faster when they made these runs alone. The leader ants even waited for followers to come back when runs were disrupted. The follower ants learned from following leaders, and benefitted because they were able to get food faster when following someone.

Question 3

Cultural transmission

Answer 3

A system of information transfer that affects an individual’s phenotype by means of either teaching or some form of social learning. Can occur within or between generations.

Question 4

Social learning

Answer 4

The process of learning by watching others

Question 5

Learning in Japanese macaques

Answer 5

One macaque began washing sweet potatoes in water before she ate them in order to remove sand. This behavior had not been seen before in the population. Many of that macaques’ peers and relatives learned the skill from watching her. Eventually, most young macaques learned this behavior at an early age by watching their mothers. This is an example of social learning. In addition, the macaque (Imo) began to throw wheat into water, so the sand mixed in with the wheat would sink. This behavior was eventually transmitted through the population.

Question 6

Stone play in Japanese macaques

Answer 6

Macaques would stack stones and knock them down, particularly right after eating. This behavior was transmitted from older to younger macaques. Juveniles engaged in many short bouts of stone play that involved vigorous body actions. Adults engaged in fewer but longer bouts of stone play. This could help slow down the deterioration of cognitive processes often seen in aging primates. Stone play is only observed in macaque populations that have “leisure time”, like populations where humans provide their food for them.

Question 7

Motor training hypothesis of play behavior

Answer 7

Juvenile macaques used vigorous body movements (running and jumping) during stone play. This suggests that stone play may facilitate the development of perceptual and cognitive skills

Question 8

In macaques, how do the number of time of stone play sessions change with age?

Answer 8

The number of stone play sessions decreases with age, while the average time per stone play session increases with age

Question 9

What is a signature of cultural transmission in chimpanzee populations?

Answer 9

Many traits are transmitted by social learning in every population, but populations differ from one another in terms of which traits are transmitted. For example, hammering nuts with stones has been seen in some populations, but not in others

Question 10

Cultural transmission in rats

Answer 10

Rats often encounter new potential foods, but sometimes they can be dangerous. Some rats learn which new foods they should try by smelling their nestmates and then trying the foods that the nestmates have ingested. The type of food a rat eats (an aspect of its phenotype) is modified by information that it has learned from other individuals.

Question 11

What is the difference between cultural transmission and individual learning?

Answer 11

Individual learning involves learning that disappears when the individual dies or earlier. Cultural transmission involves information spreading from individual to individual through a population, and what one individual learns can be passed down through generations. It requires some element of social learning for this to happen.

Question 12

Imitation

Answer 12

A form of social learning that begins early in humans. It is the acquisition of a topographically novel response through observation of a demonstrator making that response. To demonstrate imitation, there needs to be a new behavior that was learned from others. There also needs to be a new spatial manipulation to lead to the achievement of some goal. An observer bird can imitate another bird who pushes down on a lever to get food.

Question 13

Teaching

Answer 13

A form of cultural transmission in which the teacher imparts some information to a student faster than the student could learn it on their own. There is one individual serving as an instructor and one acting as a student. A teacher must provide an immediate benefit to students but not to themselves

Question 14

Difference between cultural transmission and natural selection

Answer 14

Cultural transmission spreads behaviors through a population very quickly, so it’s a potent form of information transfer. When natural selection acts to change the frequency of genes coding for behavior, the time scale can range from a few dozen generations to much longer. Cultural transmission acts over several generations, or even over a single one.

Question 15

Cultural transmission involves which components?

Answer 15

Involves a model individual (can be called a demonstrator or tutor) who learns a specific action from the model. Some situations involve observers and models but do not constitute cultural transmission

Question 16

Local enhancement

Answer 16

A situation where individuals learn from others by being drawn to an area because a model was in that location. Once it has been drawn to some aspect of the environment (through the model’s actions), the observer can learn on its own through individual learning. This is not a form of cultural transmission. Local enhancement can facilitate foraging since some animals are drawn to foraging areas.

Question 17

Social facilitation

Answer 17

The presence of a model (not its actions) facilitates learning on the part of an observer. For example, increased group size can increase individual foraging rates, probably because the presence of others made individuals safer.

Question 18

Capuchin monkeys foraging behavior

Answer 18

*Goal- examined what factors affected a monkey’s probability of eating a novel food
*Methods- in treatment 1, a lone capuchin was tested on its tendency to try a new food type. In treatment 2, a capuchin and a novel food type were on one side of a test cage, and a group of capuchins was on the other side of the cage without food. Treatment 3 was the same as treatment 2 but it had a familiar food type on the side of the cage with the group, so they’d be more likely to eat the food. Treatment 1 was a control, treatment 2 facilitated potential for social facilitation, treatment 3 facilitated potential for local enhancement.
*Results- the capuchin in treatment 3 was more likely to be eating food than capuchins in treatment 1. This provides evidence for local enhancement, but there was no evidence for social facilitation.

Question 19

Crop-raiding behavior in elephants

Answer 19

Some male elephants raid fields for crops, but this is dangerous because they can be killed by farmers. Elephants live in complex social networks and use both individual and social learning- elephants may learn how to raid crops and be vigilant for farmers through social learning. It was found that a male was more likely to raid crops if the individual it associated with most often was a crop raider. The effect was more pronounced when associates were older. This suggests social learning.

Question 20

Blue tits opening milk bottle behavior

Answer 20

Blue tits in England were able to imitate each other to open milk bottles and drink the milk. This behavior may have spread through cultural transmission from one bird who learned the trick and was observed doing it by other birds. Birds in an area where milk bottles were opened tended to prefer the same color foils, consistent with the idea that they imitated each other. The color preferred varied across a tit population, which is also consistent with cultural transmission via imitation.

Question 21

Which areas of the brain are active during imitation?

Answer 21

fMRI studies in humans have demonstrated that the inferior frontal gyrus, the dorsal and ventral premotor cortex, and other areas are active during imitation. The brain responds more strongly to opportunities to imitate an action when we see another human doing it than when we see the same action being performed by a robot.

Question 22

Neuroscience of imitation in nonhumans

Answer 22

Work on imitation in monkeys has found that a set of mirror neurons in the F5 area of the premotor area of the monkey brain becomes very active when a monkey observes an action and then repeats that action. Some of these neurons are motor neurons, and some are visual neurons. An action needs to be observed before mirror neurons will fire, which also provides evidence for imitation. The mirror neurons for humans might also reside in the same brain area and could be involved in imitation

Question 23

2 forms of social learning

Answer 23

Imitation and copying

Question 24

Copying

Answer 24

An observer repeats what it has seen a model do. The copier is usually rewarded for whatever behavior it has copied. The reward can be extrinsic (food) or intrinsic (related to animal emotions and feelings).

Question 25

How is copying different from imitation?

Answer 25

The thing that is copies doesn’t have to be novel, and copying doesn’t involve involve spatial manipulation.

Question 26

Mate choice in guppies

Answer 26

A male guppy was placed in each end chamber, and an observer female was placed in the middle of the aquarium. A model female was then placed near one male and was able to mate with the male. The observer female would then be released and would able to choose who to mate with. The observer female would usually choose the male that had been chosen by the model female. This suggests copying, although it is possible that the guppy was schooling (choosing an area of the tank that had the most fish) because guppies tend to travel in groups

Question 27

Copying a defensive response in mice

Answer 27

Mice generally don’t react to stable flies. However, once they have been bitten by a stable fly, they will exhibit a defensive response where they bury themselves in debris. When a naive mouse sees a mouse be bitten by a fly and bury itself, it will begin to bury itself the first time it is exposed to the fly, copying the defensive response. When researchers blocked the NDMA receptor, the observer did not learn to bury itself when exposed to a fly. This receptor is involved in neural plasticity.

Question 28

Tradition

Answer 28

If a new behavior emerges and becomes common within a group as a result of social learning.

Question 29

Traditions in meerkats

Answer 29

Two arbitrary landmarks were created in each group of meerkats in order to experimentally create traditions. In 7 of the 9 groups, a demonstrator individual was trained by the researchers to show a preference for one of the landmarks. In the other 2 groups, no demonstrators were trained, After seeing a demonstrator at a landmark, the meerkats in a group preferred that landmark. The tradition lasted a few days before fading. Once the group learned themselves that the other landmark was just as good, they spent time at both landmarks. Social learning produced a tradition, but individual learning caused it to end.

Question 30

Traditions in great tit populations

Answer 30

Researchers seeded great tit populations with individuals that had been trained to solve a complex foraging task in a specific way, and then examined how information spread in these populations. The task involved sliding open a door to access food that was behind it. There was a puzzle box so the food could be accessed in different ways. There were demonstrator birds who were trained to either open the door by sliding it to the right or sliding it to the left. The demonstrators were returned to their populations, and the traditions of opening the door in a specific way spread through the populations in weeks. The birds that associated with demonstrators were more likely to solve the puzzle box task than others, and they usually solved it using the technique used by their demonstrators. The tradition persisted even after the birds learned how to open the door individually, and it persisted across generations.

Question 31

Teaching in meerkats

Answer 31

Young pups aren’t capable of catching their own prey. At one month old, pups begin following groups of foragers and are assisted in their own foraging attempts by older helpers. Some prey, like scorpions, are difficult to catch and can be dangerous. Helpers can incapacitate scorpions and present them to pups as food. They are presented with live scorpions as they get older

Question 32

Teaching by helping in meerkats experiment

Answer 32

When researchers had a group of young pups but played the calls of older pups, helpers were more likely to bring live prey to the pups. When the group contained older pups, but researchers broadcast the begging calls of younger pups, helpers were more likely to bring over dead or incapacitated scorpions. They changed the prey they brought in a way that would help the pups. The older helpers also spent time monitoring pups after presenting them with food, encouraged pups to eat prey they were hesitant to eat, and retrieved prey when pups lost their food. This was costly to helpers because it was time they could have spent foraging themselves.

Question 33

2 themes in nonhuman teaching

Answer 33

1. Almost all instances of animal teaching focus on the parent/offspring relationship
2. Cases of teaching fall into 2 categories- opportunity teaching and coaching

Question 34

Teaching in fairy wrens

Answer 34

Fairy wren mothers teach their neonate offspring (while they are embryos) a vocal password associated with feeding. This is because fairy wren nests are parasitized by bronze cuckoos, and fairy wrens want to only feed their offspring. Offspring that are born earlier have less time to learn the password and therefore do a poor job of mimicking the password. Nest predation is higher when females produce more incubation calls per hour, which is a cost to teaching offspring the password. Therefore, not all offspring can be taught the password

Question 35

Opportunity teaching vs coaching

Answer 35

In opportunity teaching, teachers actively place students where they can learn a new skill. Coaching involves a teacher who directly alters students’ behavior through encouragement or punishment. However, both forms of teaching can be present at the same time.

Question 36

3 modes of cultural transmission

Answer 36

1. Vertical
2. Oblique
3. Horizontal

Question 37

Vertical cultural transmission

Answer 37

Occurs when information is transmitted across generations from parents to offspring. It can take place through teaching or social learning. In some finch species, vertical transmission occurs when males learn the song that they will sing from their fathers, and females develop song preferences in mates based on the songs their father sang

Question 38

Beaching in dolphins

Answer 38

Involves a dolphin surging out of the water and onto a beach to catch a single fish, and then quickly returning to the water with its prey. This is a rare behavior. In some regions, a group of dolphins will isolate a school of fish and herd the fish toward land, creating a wave to get them onto land and then surging out of the water to capture the fish. This behavior can be profitable, but is dangerous if the dolphin gets stranded. This is an example of vertical cultural transmission because calves learn the behavior from their mothers.

Question 39

Sponging in dolphins

Answer 39

A foraging behavior that involves female bottlenose dolphins breaking a marine sponge off the seafloor and placing it over their mouth, and using this as a tool to probe the seafloor for fish prey. This behavior is seen almost exclusively in females, spongers prefer to associate with others who use this behavior, and young females learn the behavior from their mothers. This is another example of vertical cultural transmission.

Question 40

Oblique cultural transmission

Answer 40

The transfer of information across generations, but not parent/offspring interactions- young animals get information from other adults. This is more common in systems where there is no parental care.

Question 41

Learned snake aversions in rhesus monkeys

Answer 41

Lab raised animals that have never seen a snake before do not respond to snakes in the same way as wild raised animals who have encountered snakes in nature. Experimentally, juvenile rhesus monkeys who were not afraid of snakes observed an adult model’s fear response to snakes. The juveniles adopted the same response for at least 3 months regardless of whether the individuals observed were the moneys’ parents (vertical transmission) or unrelated (oblique). In addition, monkeys who observed a model’s fear response to a neutral object did not display fear when exposed to the same object, suggesting that a predisposition to fear of snakes is interacting with oblique cultural transmission. If a monkey observed one model who was not fearful of snakes and then another model who was fearful of snakes, they were culturally “immunized” against associating snakes and fear and did not exhibit the same fear response. This is an example of vertical cultural transmission

Question 42

Horizontal cultural transmission

Answer 42

Involves transmission between peers- occurs in young individuals as well as adults

Question 43

Learning paths to a food source in guppies

Answer 43

Same aged guppies were trained to take either a long path or a short path to a food source. One by one, the original members of each group were removed and replaced by naive individuals who didn’t know either path to the food source. The study examined whether the new guppies would use the path taken by the original group members. It was found that in both groups, the new guppies still followed the path to which the original fish had been trained. This is an example of horizontal transmission since the guppies were the same age. It demonstrates that maladaptive information can be transmitted since the longer path to the food source was less beneficial.

Question 44

How do genetic and cultural transmission interact in finches?

Answer 44

When ground finches and cactus finches interbreed, their reproductive success is not impacted. However, the two species rarely interbreed- the question is whether cultural transmission prevents interbreeding. Male finches learn the songs they sing, and these songs are transmitted through cultural transmission. Fathers and sons have similar songs, but this could be due to genetic or cultural transmission. If due to genetics, sons would have songs similar to both their paternal and maternal grandfathers since they share genetics from both. However, sons’ songs are only similar to those of their paternal grandfathers, since their paternal grandfather transmitted songs to their father. This suggests cultural transmission rather than genetic. Ground and cactus finches have songs (culturally transmitted trait) that differ from each other, which causes a dramatic impact on gene flow across species. Females tend to mate with males who sing songs consistent with their species. They also tend to avoid males whose songs sound like the female’s father’s songs. Therefore, the songs may play a role in preventing inbreeding.

Question 45

How do genetic and cultural transmission interact in guppy mate choice?

Answer 45

Some guppies prefer to mate with orange-colored males- this preference is likely heritable. Orange body color is also a heritable trait in males. Researchers set up 4 treatments to examine how genetic and cultural transmission impact mate choice. In treatment 1, males were matched for body color. In treatments 2-4, males were included with different ranges of orange in their body color. In each treatment, it was designed so observer females saw a model female near the male with less orange body color- the information that was culturally transmitted to models was in direct opposition to a female’s genetic predisposition to mate choice. In treatments 1-3, females consistently preferred the less orange of the two males, copying the mate choice of the model female. However, in treatment 4, body color differed by an average of 40%. In this case, females preferred the more orange of the two males, overriding the effects of mate choice copying.

Question 46

Innovation

Answer 46

The discovery of novel solutions to problems

Question 47

Relationship between brain size and innovation

Answer 47

Brain size is positively correlated with both innovation and tool use frequency

Question 48

Innovation and brain size study in primates

Answer 48

Researchers recorded instances of innovations, social learning, and tool use in different species of primates. They mapped out these behaviors against executive brain volume- includes regions like the neocortex and striatum sections of the brain. Innovation, social learning, and tool use all had a positive correlation with the absolute value of executive brain volume.

Question 49

Innovation and brain size study in birds

Answer 49

Researchers examined whether the relationship between brain size and innovation affected bird species when they were moved to novel environments through large scale human introduction programs (where the birds were introduced to a novel habitat). They found that bird species where individuals had a high brain size/body ratio were more likely to survive and have a greater invasion potential after introduction to novel environments. Also, when large brained species were introduced to novel environments, they increased their rate of innovation, like by using a new foraging technique. This increased their probability of success in their new habitats.

Question 50

Emulation

Answer 50

Emulation has been distinguished from imitation as a form
of observational learning because it focuses not on the
model’s actions but on the action’s environmental results.