Mechanisms Of Cultural Evolution Research Articles

Name Transmission Relationships in England (1838-2014)

Baby names are often used to model the mechanisms of cultural evolution, as they are not given arbitrarily but on the basis of their perceived associations. Datasets showing birth registrations over time track changes in these perceptions, and thereby in tastes and ideas. Using birth registration data, numerous transmission biases have been identified that predispose someone to favour one cultural variant (i.e., a name) over another. While this research is facilitated by the annual release of many countries’ birth registration data, these datasets are typically limited to yearly counts of forenames. To gain insight into name transmission biases not detectable from birth registration data alone, this study parses the birth, marriage, and death registers of England to generate a dataset of 690,603 name transmission relationships, given between 1838 and 2014, and linking the names of both parents and child. The data reveal long-term trends in matro- and patronymic naming, once common practices affecting approximately 15% of male and 8% of female records per year throughout the 19th century. These practices declined precipitously throughout the 20th century, in the aftermath of the First World War. These results highlight the importance of contextualising birth registration data when identifying naming trends.

The Open Society and Its Complexities

<i>The Open Society and Its Complexities</i>

The Spatiotemporal Pattern of Cultural Evolution Response to Agricultural Development and Climate Change From Yangshao Culture to Bronze Age in the Yellow River Basin and Surrounding Regions, North China

The processes and mechanisms of cultural evolution provide helpful insights into the origin and development of civilizations. This study analyses data from the national archaeological survey using kernel density analysis, a geospatial tool provided by ArcGIS10 software, to explore the spatiotemporal pattern of cultural evolution from the beginning of the Yangshao cultural period to the Bronze Age in the Yellow River basin. Agricultural development and the environmental background of this region were reconstructed using published flotation materials and high-resolution paleoclimate records. The results indicate that cultural expansion and differentiation from Yangshao (7000–5000 BP) to Longshan period (4600–4000 BP) are responding to the establishment and strengthening of millet-based agriculture and the appearance of multiple subsistence strategies in the context of environmental deterioration. To the Bronze Age, the center of sites accumulates to the Central Plains and Shandong, in contrast to the continuous cultural expansion and differentiation. The opposite circumstance may result from early urbanization along with the formation of a social system with high centralization of power.

Mechanisms of Cultural Evolution in the Songs of Wild Bird Populations.

Young songbirds draw the source material for their learned songs from parents, peers, and unrelated adults, as well as from innovation. These learned songs are used for intraspecific communication, and have well-documented roles for such functions as territory maintenance and mate attraction. The songs of wild populations differ, forming local “dialects” that may shift over time, suggesting that cultural evolution is at work. Recent work has focused on the mechanisms responsible for the cultural evolution of bird songs within a population, including drift, learning biases (such as conformity and rare-form copying), and selection (including sexual selection). In many songs or song repertoires, variability is partitioned, with some songs or song segments being stable and consistent, while others vary within the population and across time, and still others undergo population-wide transitions over time. This review explores the different mechanisms that shape the cultural evolution of songs in wild populations, with specific reference to a long-term investigation of a single population of philopatric Savannah sparrows. Males learn a single four-segment song during their 1st year and sing the same song thereafter. Within this song, the buzz segment is a population marker, and may be stable for decades – variant forms occur but eventually disappear. In contrast, the middle segment is highly variable both within the population and over time; changes in relative prevalence of different forms may be due to cultural drift or a rare-form learning bias. Within the introductory segment, a high note cluster was replaced by a click train between 1982 and 2010, following an S-shaped trajectory characteristic of both selective sweeps in population genetics and the replacement of one form by another in human language. In the case of the Savannah sparrows, this replacement may have been due to sexual selection. In subsequent generations, the number of clicks within trains increased, a form of cultural directional selection. In contrast to the narrowing of a trait's range during directional selection in genetic systems, variation in the number of clicks in a train increased as the mean value shifted because improvisation during song learning allowed the range of the trait to expand. Thus, in the single short song of the Savannah sparrow, at least four different mechanisms appear to contribute to three different types of cultural evolutionary outcomes. In the future, it will be import to explore the conditions that favor the application of specific (and perhaps conditional) learning rules, and studies such as the ongoing song seeding experiment in the Kent Island Savannah sparrow population will help in understanding the mechanisms that promote or repress changes in a population's song.

Cultural transmission and correlational selection in Late Period projectile points from the Puna of Salta, Argentina (CE 900 - 1500)

This work proposes a methodology for documenting metric patterns of variation and trait correlation in Late Period (ca. CE 900-1500) projectile points from the Puna and pre-Puna of Salta, Argentina. In so doing, our main goal is to explain the patterns observed in terms of mechanisms of cultural evolution and selection over the design of the artefacts. We applied this methodology to assemblages of concave-based triangular projectile points from four archaeological sites whose chronologies are well established. As a result, we were able to document low degrees of variation, as well as high, positive, significant, Pearson co-variation and partial correlation coefficients between metrical traits. These results suggest a process of correlational selection that preserved an artefact design with a structure of highly integrated traits that maximised the edge-area in relation to the haft, turning these projectile points into very lethal weapons, even for potential use in interpersonal violence. This lends support to the hypothesis presented here, where replication of these projectile points occurred within a process of stabilizing cultural selection through biased transmission mechanisms that maintained the functional relations between the variables at the design scale, which in turn favoured the selection of artefacts suitable for effective weapons in a context where hunting was a strategy that optimized animal biomass acquisition, enhancing domestic herd viability.

Artefacts in Cultural Transmission: Evolutionary Perspective

In this study, the existing body of knowledge related to the mechanisms of cultural evolution is analyzed in view of the role of artefacts in cultural transmission. It is focused primarily on the vertical transmission without inter-personal contact. Particular attention is given to the comparison between unit of culture and artefacts as its material expression, as well as to the studies of analogy between replication in genetic transmission and cultural transmission. It is found that retrieving cultural information from an artefact in absence of original transmitter still shows the principal characteristics of cultural transmission. This type of cultural transmission is of lower fidelity than synchronic transmission with inter-personal contact, since it relies on an artefact as a transmission medium, but can provide for cultural persistence and lay ground for adaptive modifications over time.

Bridging cultural gaps: interdisciplinary studies in human cultural evolution.

Within the blink of an eye on a geological timescale, humans advanced from using basic stone tools to examining the rocks on Mars; however, our exact evolutionary path and the relative importance of genetic and cultural evolution in directing it remain a mystery. Our cultural capacities—to generate new ideas, to communicate and learn from one another, and to form vast social networks—together make us uniquely human, but the origins, the mechanisms and the evolutionary impact of these capacities are not well understood. This special issue comprises studies that bring together perspectives from anthropology, archaeology, biology, computer science, ecology and psychology to help elucidate the cultural forces affecting human evolution. These studies explore avenues in which approaches and insights from different fields may inform one another or be brought together to generate novel interdisciplinary research agendas, with the goal of advancing the study of human uniqueness and its pre-hominid origins. The aim of this issue is to advance interdisciplinary discussion of the roles that culture plays in shaping the course of human evolution, exploring the mechanisms of cultural evolution from their cognitive underpinnings in individuals, through the behavioural ecology of learning from others, to the dynamics of transmission at the level of individuals and populations. The articles in this issue bring insights from disparate disciplines to bear on major questions in cultural evolution [1–11] and suggest broad-scale ways in which the study of cultural evolution can be synthesized with other disciplines [12–14]. In the introduction to this issue [15], we outline how integrative studies are poised to move the field of cultural evolution forward; we demonstrate the utility of this …

What are the roots of human culture?

Culture is one of the determinants of the definition of human beings, which is the accumulation of knowledge, experiences, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, rankings, roles, visions, opinions and behavioral patterns between generations and groups. Animals will exhibit characteristic group behavior, but still lack of culture. Research on dehumanization and mind perception distinguished the differences between machine or animal and human beings on perception of lay person. Normally, agency and experience served as the basic human characteristics in human mind perception, and lack of culture is one of the sub-characteristic of agency, which means culture is one of the determinants on perception of human beings. As a psychological construct, culture has usually been explained by cultural differences. In culture psychology, there are three cultural differences, which are value view (collectivism vs. individualism), self-view (interdependent self vs. independent self), and cognition view (holism vs. analytic). In collective cultures, human beings binds as tight groups, they emphasize group value and binding and also put the benefit of group in front of self even if self-sacrificing is needed, But in individual cultures, self has the priority, also the agency and freedom of oneself is strongly emphasized no matter what group value is. The interdependent self-view holds that, the definition of oneself is highly related to significant others, such as parents, friends, colleagues, and relatives, etc.; but the independent self-view holds that, self is independent of all other social networking nodes, it is only oneself can represent himself. Holistic cognitive style is a kind of cognitive pattern to perceive the external world, one use holistic style may see the world as dialectical, contradictory, holistic, and forever changing; but one use analytical cognitive style may see the world as linear, non-contradictory, separate, and stable. Usually Chinese culture tend to be more collectivism, interdependent self-view, and holistic cognition; but Western cultures inclined to more individualism, independent self, and analytic cognition. All the cultural differences came from geographical environments, mode of production and life, and evolutional process. Agriculture and farming pattern makes people get together and share the fruits of labor, which foster the group binding and makes them tend to more collective, interdependent, and holistic. Nomadism and trading pattern shows high mobility of everyday life, which foster the individualism and makes people tend to more independent and analytic. But the essential part of culture deeply rooted in social learning capability of human beings. The social learning process is also the underlying mechanism of cultural evolution. The high fidelity of imitating, cultural differences of social learning and the neural restoring and representation will be further discussed.

Raising the bar on studying cultural evolution.

Sasaki and Biro (2017, Nature Communications, 8, 15049) show that pairs of pigeons can increase the efficiency of their homing routes over several 'generations' in which pair members are gradually replaced by naïve birds. Their findings show that socially transmitted cumulative alterations of behavior are not unique to humans and suggest a way to examine potential mechanisms of cultural evolution.

Patterns of Song across Natural and Anthropogenic Soundscapes Suggest That White-Crowned Sparrows Minimize Acoustic Masking and Maximize Signal Content.

Soundscapes pose both evolutionarily recent and long-standing sources of selection on acoustic communication. We currently know more about the impact of evolutionarily recent human-generated noise on communication than we do about how natural sounds such as pounding surf have shaped communication signals over evolutionary time. Based on signal detection theory, we hypothesized that acoustic phenotypes will vary with both anthropogenic and natural background noise levels and that similar mechanisms of cultural evolution and/or behavioral flexibility may underlie this variation. We studied song characteristics of white-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys nuttalli) across a noise gradient that includes both anthropogenic and natural sources of noise in San Francisco and Marin counties, California, USA. Both anthropogenic and natural soundscapes contain high amplitude low frequency noise (traffic or surf, respectively), so we predicted that birds would produce songs with higher minimum frequencies in areas with higher amplitude background noise to avoid auditory masking. We also anticipated that song minimum frequencies would be higher than the projected lower frequency limit of hearing based on site-specific masking profiles. Background noise was a strong predictor of song minimum frequency, both within a local noise gradient of three urban sites with the same song dialect and cultural evolutionary history, and across the regional noise gradient, which encompasses 11 urban and rural sites, several dialects, and several anthropogenic and natural sources of noise. Among rural sites alone, background noise tended to predict song minimum frequency, indicating that urban sites were not solely responsible for driving the regional pattern. These findings support the hypothesis that songs vary with local and regional soundscapes regardless of the source of noise. Song minimum frequency from five core study sites was also higher than the lower frequency limit of hearing at each site, further supporting the hypothesis that songs vary to transmit through noise in local soundscapes. Minimum frequencies leveled off at noisier sites, suggesting that minimum frequencies are constrained to an upper limit, possibly to retain the information content of wider bandwidths. We found evidence that site noise was a better predictor of song minimum frequency than territory noise in both anthropogenic and natural soundscapes, suggesting that cultural evolution rather than immediate behavioral flexibility is responsible for local song variation. Taken together, these results indicate that soundscapes shape song phenotype across both evolutionarily recent and long-standing soundscapes.

Cultural Shuffled Frog Leaping Algorithm and its Applications for the Radar Network Deployment

The substance of the deployment of radar network is a multi-parameter optimization problem. This paper presents an objective function to deploy the radar network and a shuffled frog leaping algorithm (SFLA) is proposed to implement the radar network deployment. The proposed cultural shuffled frog leaping algorithm (CSFLA) makes use of mechanism of cultural evolution to update the locations of cultural frogs. Simulation results show that the proposed CSFLA has stronger abilities of exploitation and exploration by designing new leaping equations based on knowledge strategy and information communication, which may obviously improve the performance of SFLA. The radar network deployment based on the CSFLA is superior to previous deployment based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) and the SFLA in the convergence speed and optimization results. It provides a new idea to the radar network deployment.

Evolutionary Decomposition and the Mechanisms of Cultural Change

Beginning with the Price equation, recent work has developed the method of evolutionary decomposition, an exact partitioning of mean phenotypic change into underlying demographic processes. We present a method of evolutionary decomposition for human cultural change, and a demonstration of this method on three centuries of half-decadal census records collected from a simulated island population. By decomposing phenotypic trajectories, we can develop and evaluate suitable hypotheses of the driving mechanisms of cultural evolution.

The Mechanism of Cultural Evolution in Nietzsche’s Genealogical Writings

In recent scholarship on Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), substantial efforts have been made to better understand the peculiar interaction between his philosophical genealogy of culture and his persistent use of biological discourse.1 Conspicuous in this respect is the fact that the philosopher repeatedly connected cultural and even cognitive processes to biological constraints in the works he published from the late 1 870s onwards. Contemporary researchers are deeply divided on the question of how Nietzsche relates to the evolutionary paradigms of his time, particularly to Darwinism - relationship often characterized as ambiguous and inconsistent.2 We agree with the claim that much is to be said Darwinian reading of Nietzsche's writings.3 But too little attention has been paid to the particular way in which the cultural and the biological actually intertwine in Nietzsche's analysis. It is our contention that Nietzsche developed in his major genealogical writings - Human, All too Human, Daybreak, The Gay Science, Beyond Good and Evil, and On the Genealogy of Morals - systematic outline of mechanism of cultural evolution, with prominent function attributed to the spirit, the intellect.4 We will show that this mechanism of cultural evolution explains how culture (thoughts, ideas, . . .) becomes heritable, elucidating the operation of the process of Einverleibung, as the assimilation of thoughts into the body. The Mechanism of Cultural Evolution: A Componential Analysis As its title suggests, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches: Ein Buch fur freie Geister wants to demonstrate that many concepts, experiences, values, and truths that have been considered fundamental, universal, and eternal are in fact exponents of particular and historical human interests. It is indeed a schooling in suspicion (eine Schule des Verdachts, MA Vorrede I). In order to substantiate this claim, Nietzsche not only advocates the necessity of historical thinking - and thus outlines what will later become the method of genealogy - he also delineates what we may call mechanism of history, mechanism of evolution. An important aphorism in this respect is entitled Veredelung durch Entartung (Ennoblement through degeneration, MA I 224). Here, Nietzsche argues that evolution does not merely occur by the accumulation of strength and health (fitness), but also - and necessarily - relies on the contribution of the weak and degenerate. In spite of the medical (Infection) and botanical (Inoculation) phrasing, he does not explain how this process of ennoblement turns into momentum of evolution. He posits that the free (Freigeist), even though he possesses the critical power to keep distant from his own affects, has to be considered weak on practical level (im Handeln, in actions), whereas the spirit (der gebundene Geist) keeps society stable. The fettered does so because he acts out of habituation (Gewohnung or Angewohnung, MA 1 226). Since he accepts society's customary opinions without probing them, he believes in society,5 which renders him steady and turns him into reliable and strong member, who carries out orders and safeguards the durability of social hierarchies: Narrowness of views, through habit become instinct, conducts to what is called strength of character (Die Gebundenheit der Ansichten, durch Gewohnung zum Instinct geworden, fuhrt zu dem, was man Charakterstarke nennt, ?? I 228). Hence, he is conceived of as having good character.6 The free in his turn does not necessarily accept traditional values and explanations and is thus incessantly confronted with the problem of choice and decision-making. This makes him weak: for he is too aware of too many motives and points of view and therefore possesses an uncertain and unpracticed hand (denn er kennt zu viele Motive und Gesichtspuncte und hat desshalb eine unsichere, ungeubte Hand, ?? I 230). But why does weak individual such as the free not succumb? …

Cultural firework algorithm and its application for digital filters design

The substance of the digital filter design is a multi-parameter optimisation problem. This paper presents a joint objective function to design finite impulse response (FIR) digital filters and infinite impulse response (IIR) digital filters, and a cultural firework (CF) algorithm is proposed to implement filter designs. The design of the filter is transformed into the constrained optimisation problem, and the cultural firework algorithm is used to search optimal value of filter design parameters in the parameter space with parallel search. The proposed cultural firework algorithm is a multi-dimensional search algorithm for optimisation of real numbers, which uses mechanisms of cultural evolution to update the locations of cultural sparks. Computer simulations have showed that FIR and IIR digital filters based on the CF algorithm are superior to previous filters based on particle swarm optimisation (PSO), quantum-behaved particle swarm optimisation (QPSO) and adaptive quantum-behaved particle swarm optimisation (AQPSO) in the convergence speed and optimisation results. The effectiveness and superiority of the CF are also demonstrated by computer simulations.

Directional cultural change by modification and replacement of memes.

Evolutionary approaches to culture remain contentious. A source of contention is that cultural mutation may be substantial and, if it drives cultural change, then current evolutionary models are not adequate. But we lack studies quantifying the contribution of mutations to directional cultural change. We estimated the contribution of one type of cultural mutations--modification of memes--to directional cultural change using an amenable study system: learned birdsongs in a species that recently entered an urban habitat. Many songbirds have higher minimum song frequency in cities, to alleviate masking by low-frequency noise. We estimated that the input of meme modifications in an urban songbird population explains about half the extent of the population divergence in song frequency. This contribution of cultural mutations is large, but insufficient to explain the entire population divergence. The remaining divergence is due to selection of memes or creation of new memes. We conclude that the input of cultural mutations can be quantitatively important, unlike in genetic evolution, and that it operates together with other mechanisms of cultural evolution. For this and other traits, in which the input of cultural mutations might be important, quantitative studies of cultural mutation are necessary to calibrate realistic models of cultural evolution.

Darwinism and the Cultural Evolution of Sports

This article outlines a Darwinian approach to sports that takes into account its profoundly cultural character and thereby overcomes the traditional nature-culture dichotomies in the sociology of sport. We argue that there are good reasons to view sports as culturally evolved signaling systems that serve a function similar to (biological) courtship rituals in other animals. Our approach combines the insights of evolutionary psychology, which states that biological adaptations determine the boundaries for the types of sport that are possible, and pure cultural theories, which describe the mechanism of cultural evolution without referring to sport's biological bases. Several biological and cultural factors may moderate the direct effect that signaling value has on a sport's viability or popularity. Social learning underlies many aspects of the cultural control of sports, and sports have evolved new cultural functions more-or-less unrelated to mate choice as cultural evolution itself became important in humans.

Biology and social life: book review/Biologie et vie sociale: note de lecture: The trouble with memes: deconstructing Dawkins's monster

The essay explores the adequacy of the `meme' concept to explain the basic mechanism of cultural evolution. Distin's defense of `memetics' is deficient because it is based on a flawed analogy with genetics. Although Richerson and Boyd's `cultural variant' is not based on a flawed analogy with genetics, their alternative appears primarily to be operant conditioning in disguise and presents no novel innovations in learning theory. Both models of gene—culture co-evolution are examples of one-sided cultural determinism with no genuine biological component. Analysis of the information metaphysics of memes and cultural variants reveals that both concepts are also committed to mind—body dualism.

Institutions as Mechanisms of Cultural Evolution: Prospects of the Epidemiological Approach

Studying institutions as part of the research on cultural evolution prompts us to analyze one very important mechanism of cultural evolution: institutions do distribute cultural variants in the population. Also, it enables relating current research on cultural evolution to some more traditional social sciences: institutions, often seen as macro-social entities, are analyzed in terms of their constitutive micro-phenomena. This article presents Sperber’s characterization of institutions, and then gives some hints about the set of phenomena to which it applies.

Evolutionary social science and universal Darwinism

How should social scientists, inclined to an evolutionary theory of aspects of human culture like science, technology, business organization and practice, react to proposals that they embrace a “Universal Darwinism”? The most prominent variety of Universal Darwinism argues for close counterparts between the variables and mechanisms of cultural evolution and biological evolution, for example proposing the concept of “memes” as units of culture. Other Universal Darwinists propose, more flexibly, that human culture and biological species both change over time through a process that involves variation and selection, but that the details of the processes may be very different. This essay argues that the narrower form of Universal Darwinism should not be acceptable to social scientists. The differences in the details of cultural evolution and biological evolution are considerable. On the other hand, if Universal Darwinism provides a roomy intellectual tent welcoming scholars studying a variety of topics, with the unifying element being a dynamic theory involving variation and selection, but with the key variables and mechanisms being recognized as perhaps differing greatly between biology and human culture, we can be happy in that camp. Evolutionary Social Science and Universal Darwinism.

On mechanisms of cultural evolution, and the evolution of language and the common law

On mechanisms of cultural evolution, and the evolution of language and the common law