Culture

Question 1

What is one animal that exhibits cultural behavior, and what is this behavior?

Answer 1

Sweet-potato washing by Japanese monkeys on Koshima island

Question 2

What is another example of cultural behavior in animals?

Answer 2

New Caledonian crows make different kinds of tools in different parts of the island

Question 3

What are the three aspects of culture

Answer 3

behaviors are transmitted through some form of social learning (not genetically)

behaviors are shared by many members of a group (and often vary between groups)

behaviors are shared by many members of a group (and often vary between groups)

Question 4

What are three ways of identifying animal culture

Answer 4

The “ethnographic method”

Experimental approaches

(Social) network-based diffusion analysis (NBDA)

Question 5

what is the “ethnographic method”

Answer 5

Documents regional variation in behavior(s) across different populations of the same species

Can we discount a purely genetic or a purely ecological basis for the observed differences? If yes, then by the ”method of exclusion” we may conclude that the differences are cultural.

Question 6

What are experimental cultural approaches

Answer 6

Translocation experiments (what happens when individuals/groups are exchanged between locations?)

Cultural learning and diffusion experiments (do individuals need social input, and can behavioral variants spread via social learning?)

Question 7

What is (Social) network-based diffusion analysis (NBDA)