Social Tinkering: The Social Foundations of Cultural Complexity.

From Theory and Criticism to Practice:

Preface - Acknowledgements - Introducing the Study of Animal Behaviour - Introduction - Fields of Study - Methods of Study of Animal Behaviour - Instinct and Learning in the Natural Environment - Adaptation to the Environment - Development of Behaviour within the Individual - Motivation - Learning and Behaviour - Different Kinds of Learning - Comparative Study of Learning and Memory - Applications of Learning Theory to Humans - Animal Communication - The Basis of Communication - Social Communication - Teaching Human Language to Animals - Social Behaviour - Forms of Social Organisation - Territory and Social Organisation - Social Dominance - Parents and Offspring - Bibliography - Index

One of the most fascinating questions within the field of sexual selection is why and how females and males choose particular conspecifics as mates. Sexual selection theories provide different explanations for the origin and evolution of ornamental traits and mate preferences for such traits (overview in Andersson 1994; Jennions et al. 2001; Kokko et al. 2003). Genes for the ornamental trait and genes for the concomitant preference can co-evolve as a result of a genetic linkage between those genes as a result of the Fisherian runaway process (Fisher 1930; Lande 1981; Kirkpatrick 1982; Brooks 2000) or as a result of a selection for mates advertising ‘good genes’ (indicator models; Zahavi 1975; Moller & Alatalo 1999). These models generally assume that mate preferences are genetically based (Bakker 1999). Forming mate preferences, however, is a complex process involving not only genetic factors but also non-genetic factors. Increasing evidence suggests that the social environment (Dugatkin 1996a; Westneat et al. 2000) and learning are important factors in forming mate preferences. The mate choice of conspecifics influences the mate choice decisions of an individual, who can alter mate preferences through learning processes. Social learning, and using public information (Danchin et al. 2004; and see Chapter 10) and other kinds of learning, therefore, significantly influence the process of sexual selection. Forms of social learning have now been recognized as meaningful mechanisms for the non-genetic inheritance (i.e. cultural transmission) of mate preferences, leading to cultural evolution of mate preferences. This chapter illustrates how learning is involved in the mate choices of fishes and emphasizes the important roles that different kinds of learning, particularly social learning, play in sexual selection. It focuses on four different kinds of learning: sexual imprinting; learning after reaching maturity; eavesdropping; and mate-choice copying.

Like attention, consciousness, and other words from ordinary language used in psychology, learning is a term that everyone understands even though it eludes satisfactory technical definition (Section 4.2.1; Rescorla 2007). Functionally, learning allows animals to adjust their behavior to the local environment through individual experience. Animals need to know such things as what locally available food is good to eat, where and when to find it, which individuals to avoid and which to approach. This chapter introduces a basic framework for thinking about learning and then considers some ideas about the function and evolution of learning. The longest part of the chapter reviews data and theory about Pavlovian conditioning, perhaps the best-studied form of learning and one of the phylogenetically most widespread. Armed with this framework and some facts about conditioning, we will be in a position to analyze other forms of learning in future chapters. We will also be equipped to assess claims that some animals sometimes behave in ways that cannot be only the products of conditioning but rather require reasoning, a theory of mind, a qualitatively different kind of learning, or the like.

(1999). A different kind of learning: Relationships and sexuality education. Irish Educational Studies: Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 223-233.

This paper looks at how the ontological and epistemological premises of posthumanism allow educators to reread a curriculum. Document analysis reveals the current grade 6 first foreign language curriculum in Lithuania as being, in Deleuzian terms, a striated, exhaustive, and positivist one. It is also ridden with tension to meet both the naturally arising learners’ interests and standardized learning outcomes. Posthumanism, which invites educators to look at the curriculum rhizomatically, allows for different kind of learning – defined through thinking, becoming, and affirming.

Synaptic plasticity and learning II: Do different kinds of plasticity underlie different kinds of learning?

This chapter takes as a starting point arguments and evidence that we developed around 2010 (Davies, The Bologna process and university lifelong learning. The state of play and future directions. Final report of BeFlex project benchmarking flexibility in the Bologna reforms (Agreement No. 2006-0073. Socrates Programme of the European Commission). Retrieved from http://www.eucen.eu/BeFlex/FinalReports/BeFlexFullReportPD.pdf, 2007; Davies, BeFlex Plus: Progress on flexibility in the Bologna reform. Final report of BeFlex Plus project (Agreement 134538-LLP-1-2007-1-BE-ERASMUS-EMHE). Retrieved from http://www.eucen.net/BeFlexPlus/Reports/2007_3572_FR_BeFlexPlus_PublicPart.pdf, 2009; de Viron & Davies, From University lifelong learning to lifelong learning universities – Developing and implementing effective strategy. In: Yang J, Schneller C, Roche S (eds) The role of higher education in promoting lifelong learning. UNESCO Institute of Lifelong Learning (UIL), UIL Publication series on lifelong learning policies and strategies: No. 3 monograph. Hamburg, UIL, pp 40–59. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002335/233592e.pdf, 2015) which compared the European university lifelong learning provision (ULLL) to an ideal institutional model, the LLL University (LLLU model), i.e., an agile and flexible organization where learning is lifelong and lifewide, fully connected with individuals, communities, and societal aspirations and needs.It examines how far ULLL developed in this direction subsequently, the new impulses following the Covid crisis and megatrends in contemporary society. In our view, three key aspirations emerge from debates and surveys: critical thinking, learning space, learning time. The chapter revisits these concepts and explores them in a social and democratic perspective. More than ever, critical thinking appears as the priority to promote and develop in all university domains (learning, teaching, researching, and managing). Moreover, universities are invited to re-think learning time and space inside and outside the university and to implement oases supporting different kinds of learning – informal, non-formal, and formal – promoting learners’ emancipation and responsibility. Hybridization, diversification, and extension of learning spaces and diversity of learning rhythms, ownership, and slowness of learning time are all essential.The chapter highlights important elements to be considered specifically by European universities, but applicable more widely, in developing lines of action to implement an LLLU culture moving towards a learning organization, finally suggests perspectives for further research.KeywordsUniversity lifelong learningCritical thinkingTimeSpace

This chapter takes as a starting point argument and evidence that we developed around 2010. This includes a review of the Bologna process and university lifelong learning and our proposal to change from university lifelong learning (ULLL) to lifelong learning universities (LLLU). We had compared the European ULLL model to an ideal institutional model, i.e., the LLLU model, which should be an agile and flexible organization where learning is lifelong and lifewide, fully connected with individuals, communities, and societal aspirations and needs. This chapter examines how far ULLL developed in this direction subsequently, the new impulses following the Covid crisis and megatrends in contemporary society. In our view, three key aspirations emerge from debates and surveys: critical thinking, learning space, and learning time. The chapter revisits these concepts and explores them in a social and democratic perspective. More than ever, critical thinking appears as the priority to promote and develop in all university domains (learning, teaching, researching, and managing). Moreover, universities are invited to re-think learning time and space inside and outside the university and to develop oases supporting different kinds of learning – informal, non-formal, and formal – promoting learners’ emancipation and responsibility. Hybridization, diversification, and extension of learning spaces and diversity of learning rhythms, ownership, and slowness of learning time are all essential. The chapter highlights important elements to be considered specifically by European universities, but applicable more widely, in developing lines of action to implement an LLLU culture moving toward a learning organization. It finally suggests perspectives for further research.

Social justice matters in education and it matters most when students struggle to complete and succeed at school. The central role of teachers' pedagogical practice in this process is well established, but what is less clear is how to support the kind of professional learning that contributes to students' success at school—the pedagogy of disrupting the default modes of schooling. This paper describes some existing structures in four schools working under challenging circumstances and how these structures function in ways to support different kinds of learning. Initiating and sustaining change requires fundamental disruptions to these modes of operation. In order for teachers to do new things, they need to be able to learn new things, but the difficulty is ensuring that teachers learn the kinds of practices and develop the kinds of beliefs that support students' success at school. We draw insights from our research into how this may be understood and achieved, and relate our findings to attempts to bridge the gap between the literature on learning organization and that of organizational learning.

Animal cognition

Despite almost half a century of research for theory of mind, its evolutionary origin is largely unknown. This paper proposes that the evolutionary origin of theory of mind starts from the beginning of the human evolution to form hominins through bipedalism and the mixed habitat. The feet of the early hominins were still adapted for grasping trees rather than walking for long distances and running fast on the ground. The early hominins lived in the mixed habitat of grassy woodland with patches of denser forest, and freshwater springs. The difficulty of walking in the mixed habitat leads to division of labor for the home specialist group (small children, old people, and mothers with small children, and pregnant women) in the safe forest area and the exploration specialist group (young people without the care of small children) in the dangerous open area. The different tasks, attitudes, and mentalities in different specialist groups produce theory of mind as the ability to attribute different mental states to different specialist groups. (Uniformity of mind instead of theory of mind is for generalists without division of labor). The early Homo species with the open habitat developed theory of mind for hunter specialist group and gatherer specialist group. The middle Homo species with complex stone tools developed theory of mind for the cooperative specialist groups in the large production of complex stone tools. The late Homo species with complex social interaction developed theory of mind for mind reading to enhance cooperation and to detect cheaters in complex social interaction. For religion, the unusually harsh Upper Paleolithic Period developed theory of mind for imaginary specialists in terms of supernatural power, guidance, and comfort. Therefore, the three general types of theory of mind are for specialists in division of labor, mind reading in complex social interaction, and imaginary specialists in imaginary division of labor under harsh conditions. Self-awareness in the mirror self-recognition test is also explained.

Quality should not be confused with quality assurance, whose purpose is to ensure that people continue to do what they believe they should do, as best they can, week in and week out. QA procedures apply equally well to poor teaching as to good teaching. Edwards Denning, the guru of quality assurance in industry summed up the situation with the words: “Everyone doing their best is not the answer; they must first know what to do.” Ensuring that everyone does their best is the business of quality assurance; everyone knowing, or better still understanding, what to do is the basis of good quality. The author argues that in order to understand what to do, it is essential that teachers distinguish between different kinds of learning, so that they can match their teaching and assessment methods to the specified learning goals. The point is that different kinds of learning require different teaching and assessment methods, and different kinds of students do best if the teaching styles used match their preferred learning styles. (2 pages)

We consider a learning mechanism where expected values of an economic variable in discrete time are computed in the form of a weighted average that exponentially discounts older data. Also adaptive expectations can be expressed as weighted sums of infinitely many past states, with exponentially decreasing weights, but these are not averages since the weights do not sum up to one for any given initial time. These two different kinds of learning, which are often considered as equivalent in the literature, are compared in this paper. The statistical learning dynamics with exponentially decreasing weights can be reduced to the study of a two-dimensional autonomous dynamical system, whose limiting sets are the same as those obtained with adaptive expectations. However, starting from a given initial condition, different transient dynamics are obtained, and consequently convergence to different attracting sets may occur. In other words, even if the two different kinds of learning dynamics have the same attracting sets, they may have different basins of attraction. This implies that local stability results are not sufficient to select the kind of long-run dynamics since this may crucially depend on the initial conditions. We show that the two-dimensional discrete dynamical system equivalent to the statistical learning with fading memory is represented by a triangular map with denominator which vanishes along a line, and this gives rise to particular structures of their basins of attraction, whose study requires a global analysis of the map. We discuss some examples motivated by the economic literature.

People with anorexia nervosa (AN) commonly exhibit social difficulties, which may be related to problems with understanding the perspectives of others, commonly known as Theory of Mind (ToM) processing. However, there is a dearth of literature investigating the neural basis of these differences in ToM and at what age they emerge. This study aimed to test for differences in the neural correlates of ToM processes in young women with AN, and young women weight-restored (WR) from AN, as compared to healthy control participants (HC). Based on previous findings in AN, we hypothesized that young women with current or prior AN, as compared to HCs, would exhibit a reduced neural response in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), the inferior frontal gyrus, and the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) whilst completing a ToM task. We recruited 73 young women with AN, 45 WR young women, and 70 young women without a history of AN to take part in the current study. Whilst undergoing a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan, participants completed the Frith-Happé task, which is a commonly used measure of ToM with demonstrated reliability and validity in adult populations. In this task, participants viewed the movements of triangles, which depicted either action movements, simple interactions, or complex social interactions. Viewing trials with more complex social interactions in the Frith-Happé task was associated with increased brain activation in regions including the right TPJ, the bilateral mPFC, the cerebellum, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. There were no group differences in neural activation in response to the ToM contrast. Overall, these results suggest that the neural basis of spontaneous mentalizing is preserved in most young women with AN.