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Page AE, Ringen EJ, Koster J, Borgerhoff Mulder M, Kramer K, Shenk MK, Stieglitz J, Starkweather K, Ziker JP, Boyette AH, Colleran H, Moya C, Du J, Mattison SM, Greaves R, Sum CY, Liu R, Lew-Levy S, Kiabiya Ntamboudila F, Prall S, Towner MC, Blumenfield T, Migliano AB, Major-Smith D, Dyble M, Salali GD, Chaudhary N, Derkx IE, Ross CT, Scelza BA, Gurven MD, Winterhalder BP, Cortez C, Pacheco-Cobos L, Schacht R, Macfarlan SJ, Leonetti D, French JC, Alam N, Zohora FT, Kaplan HS, Hooper PL, Sear R. Women's subsistence strategies predict fertility across cultures, but context matters. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2318181121. [PMID: 38346210 PMCID: PMC10907265 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2318181121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2023] [Accepted: 12/27/2023] [Indexed: 02/15/2024] Open
Abstract
While it is commonly assumed that farmers have higher, and foragers lower, fertility compared to populations practicing other forms of subsistence, robust supportive evidence is lacking. We tested whether subsistence activities-incorporating market integration-are associated with fertility in 10,250 women from 27 small-scale societies and found considerable variation in fertility. This variation did not align with group-level subsistence typologies. Societies labeled as "farmers" did not have higher fertility than others, while "foragers" did not have lower fertility. However, at the individual level, we found strong evidence that fertility was positively associated with farming and moderate evidence of a negative relationship between foraging and fertility. Markers of market integration were strongly negatively correlated with fertility. Despite strong cross-cultural evidence, these relationships were not consistent in all populations, highlighting the importance of the socioecological context, which likely influences the diverse mechanisms driving the relationship between fertility and subsistence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Abigail E. Page
- Division of Psychology, Brunel University of London, LondonUB8 3PN, United Kingdom
- Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, LondonWC1E 7HT, United Kingdom
| | - Erik J. Ringen
- University of Zürich, Zürich8050, Switzerland
- Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zürich, Zürich8050, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution, University of Zürich, Zürich8050, Switzerland
| | - Jeremy Koster
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig04103, Germany
| | - Monique Borgerhoff Mulder
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig04103, Germany
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, CA95616
| | - Karen Kramer
- Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT84112
| | - Mary K. Shenk
- Department of Anthropology, Penn State College of the Liberal Arts, State College, PA16801
| | - Jonathan Stieglitz
- Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, Universite Toulouse 1 Capitole, Toulouse31080, France
| | | | - John P. Ziker
- Department of Anthropology, Boise State University, Boise, ID83725
| | - Adam H. Boyette
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig04103, Germany
| | - Heidi Colleran
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig04103, Germany
| | - Cristina Moya
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, CA95616
| | - Juan Du
- State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-Ecosystem, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou730000, China
| | - Siobhán M. Mattison
- Department of Anthropology, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM87106
| | - Russell Greaves
- Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM87106
| | - Chun-Yi Sum
- Anthropology Department, Boston University, Boston, MA02215
| | - Ruizhe Liu
- Department of Anthropology, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM87106
| | - Sheina Lew-Levy
- Department of Psychology, Durham University, DurhamDH1 3LE, United Kingdom
| | - Francy Kiabiya Ntamboudila
- Faculté des Lettres, Arts, et Sciences Humaines, Département d’anthropologie, Marien Ngouabi University, Brazzaville, Congo
| | - Sean Prall
- Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO65201
| | - Mary C. Towner
- Department of Integrative Biology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK74078
| | - Tami Blumenfield
- Department of Anthropology, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM87106
| | | | - Daniel Major-Smith
- Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, BristolBS8 2PS, United Kingdom
| | - Mark Dyble
- Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, CambridgeCB2 3DZ, United Kingdom
| | - Gul Deniz Salali
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, LondonWC1H 0BW, United Kingdom
| | - Nikhil Chaudhary
- Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, CambridgeCB2 3DZ, United Kingdom
| | - Inez E. Derkx
- Department of Anthropology, Universität Zürich, Zürich8050, Switzerland
| | - Cody T. Ross
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig04103, Germany
| | - Brooke A. Scelza
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA90095
| | - Michael D. Gurven
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA93106
| | | | | | - Luis Pacheco-Cobos
- Facultad de Biología–Xalapa, Universidad Veracruzana, Zalapa-Enriquez91090, México
| | - Ryan Schacht
- Department of Anthropology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC27858
| | | | - Donna Leonetti
- Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Settle, WA98105
| | - Jennifer C. French
- Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, LiverpoolL69 7WZ, United Kingdom
| | - Nurul Alam
- Health Systems and Population Studies Division, International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka1213, Bangladesh
| | - Fatema tuz Zohora
- Health Systems and Population Studies Division, International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka1213, Bangladesh
| | - Hillard S. Kaplan
- Department of Anthropology, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM87106
| | - Paul L. Hooper
- Department of Anthropology, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM87106
| | - Rebecca Sear
- Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, LondonWC1E 7HT, United Kingdom
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Pretelli I, Borgerhoff Mulder M, Makame Khamis B, McElreath R. Foraging and the importance of knowledge in Pemba, Tanzania: implications for childhood evolution. Proc Biol Sci 2023; 290:20231505. [PMID: 37964531 PMCID: PMC10646471 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2023.1505] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/04/2023] [Accepted: 10/18/2023] [Indexed: 11/16/2023] Open
Abstract
Childhood is a period of life unique to humans. Childhood may have evolved through the need to acquire knowledge and subsistence skills. In an effort to understand the functional significance of childhood, previous research examined increases with age in returns to foraging across food resources. Such increases could be due to changes in knowledge, or other factors such as body size or strength. Here, we attempt to unpack these age-related changes. First, we estimate age-specific foraging returns for two resources. We then develop nonlinear structural equation models to evaluate the relative importance of ecological knowledge, grip strength and height in a population of part-time children foragers on Pemba island, Tanzania. We use anthropometric measures (height, strength, n = 250), estimates of ecological knowledge (n = 93) and behavioural observations for 63 individuals across 370 foraging trips. We find slower increases in foraging returns with age for trap hunting than for shellfish collection. We do not detect any effect of individual knowledge on foraging returns, potentially linked to information sharing within foraging parties. Producing accurate estimates of the distinct contribution of specific traits to an individual's foraging performance constitutes a key step in evaluating different hypotheses for the emergence of childhood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ilaria Pretelli
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
- Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, Toulouse, France
| | - Monique Borgerhoff Mulder
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
| | | | - Richard McElreath
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
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Veen J, Jang H, Raubenheimer D, van Pinxteren BOCM, Kandza V, Meirmans PG, van Dam NM, Dunker S, Hoffmann P, Worrich A, Janmaat KRL. Development of embodied capital: Diet composition, foraging skills, and botanical knowledge of forager children in the Congo Basin. Front Ecol Evol 2023. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2023.935987] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/10/2023] Open
Abstract
The embodied capital theory states that the extended juvenile period has enabled human foragers to acquire the complex foraging skills and knowledge needed to obtain food. Yet we lack detailed data on how forager children develop these skills and knowledge. Here, we examine the seasonal diet composition, foraging behavior, and botanical knowledge of Mbendjele BaYaka forager children in the Republic of the Congo. Our data, acquired through long-term observations involving full-day focal follows, show a high level of seasonal fluctuation in diet and foraging activities of BaYaka children, in response to the seasonal availability of their food sources. BaYaka children foraged more than half of the time independent from adults, predominantly collecting and eating fruits, tubers, and seeds. For these most-consumed food types, we found an early onset of specialization of foraging skills in children, similar to the gendered division in foraging in adults. Specifically, children were more likely to eat fruit and seed species when there were more boys and men in the group, and girls were more likely than boys to collect tuber species. In a botanical knowledge test, children were more accurate at identifying plant food species with increasing age, and they used fruits and trunks for species identification, more so than using leaves and barks. These results show how the foraging activities of BaYaka children may facilitate the acquisition of foraging skills and botanical knowledge and provide insights into the development of embodied capital. Additionally, BaYaka children consumed agricultural foods more than forest foods, probably reflecting BaYaka’s transition into a horticultural lifestyle. This change in diet composition may have significant consequences for the cognitive development of BaYaka children.
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Boyette AH, Lew-Levy S, Valchy M, Gettler LT. Associations between men's reputations for fathering and their reproductive success among BaYaka foragers in the Congo Basin. EVOL HUM BEHAV 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2023.02.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/19/2023]
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Haro-Luna MX, Blancas Vázquez J, Ruan-Soto F, Guzmán-Dávalos L. Sociocultural drivers of mycological knowledge: insights from Wixarika and Mestizo groups in western Mexico. J Ethnobiol Ethnomed 2022; 18:68. [PMID: 36401266 PMCID: PMC9675267 DOI: 10.1186/s13002-022-00564-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2022] [Accepted: 11/03/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Traditional mycological knowledge (TMK) is complex, not distributed equally among the entire population, and constantly adapting to current social situations. There are sociocultural factors that could influence the fact that some people retain a greater wealth of knowledge, for instance, cultural affiliation, migration, occupation, level of schooling, and person's age. METHODS We analyze the distribution of the TMK based on sociocultural variables and 12 indicators to quantify the TMK based on a literature review. We chose two sites where there was a Wixarika and Mestizo population with records of use and consumption of wild mushrooms. In each site, 150 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The format of the semi-structured interviews was made up of sociocultural questions plus 12 questions corresponding to each of the indicators. With the data obtained, we performed linear regression tests and principal components analysis (PCA); furthermore, the significance of the groupings obtained by PCA was tested with a discriminant function analysis. RESULTS We find that TMK was determined by the cultural group to which a person belongs. Contrary to what was expected, age and formal schooling did not influence people's level of knowledge. Likewise, migration and occupation were not determining factors either, although in some specific cases they did influence the differences in knowledge about mushrooms between people. The indicators that most helped to differentiate between the Wixarika people, and the Mestizos were knowledge of the nutritional contribution, propagation methods, and knowledge about toxic mushrooms. CONCLUSIONS In general, sociocultural differences did not affect the transmission of the TMK due to the valorization of this knowledge among the young generations and the maintenance of the use of wild resources. Specifically, the Wixaritari had and preserved a greater TMK thanks to their pride in their cultural identity, which had allowed them to adapt to modernity while preserving their traditions and knowledge. On the other hand, the Mestizos increasingly disused wild resources due to urbanization. The indicators proposed here provided a good tool to quantify TMK; however, to replicate the study in other sites it is necessary to adapt the indicators to the context of the place.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mara Ximena Haro-Luna
- Department of Botany and Zoology, University of Guadalajara, Apdo. Postal 1-139, 45147, Zapopan, JAL, Mexico
| | - José Blancas Vázquez
- Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Conservación, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, Mexico
| | - Felipe Ruan-Soto
- Instituto de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico.
| | - Laura Guzmán-Dávalos
- Department of Botany and Zoology, University of Guadalajara, Apdo. Postal 1-139, 45147, Zapopan, JAL, Mexico.
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Pretelli I, Ringen E, Lew-Levy S. Foraging complexity and the evolution of childhood. Sci Adv 2022; 8:eabn9889. [PMID: 36223468 PMCID: PMC9555775 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abn9889] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/06/2022] [Accepted: 08/25/2022] [Indexed: 05/22/2023]
Abstract
Our species' long childhood is hypothesized to have evolved as a period for learning complex foraging skills. Researchers studying the development of foraging proficiency have focused on assessing this hypothesis, yet studies present inconsistent conclusions regarding the connection between foraging skill development and niche complexity. Here, we leverage published records of child and adolescent foragers from 28 societies to (i) quantify how skill-intensive different resources are and (ii) assess whether children's proficiency increases more slowly for more skill-intensive resources. We find that foraging returns increase slowly for more skill-intensive, difficult-to-extract resources (tubers and game), consistent with peak productivity attained in adulthood. Foraging returns for easier-to-extract resources (fruit and fish/shellfish) increase rapidly during childhood, with adult levels of productivity reached by adolescence. Our findings support the view that long childhoods evolved as an extended period for learning to extract complex resources characteristic of the human foraging niche.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ilaria Pretelli
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
- Corresponding author.
| | - Erik Ringen
- Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
| | - Sheina Lew-Levy
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
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Abstract
AbstractExtractive foraging tasks, such as digging, are broadly practiced among hunter-gatherer populations in different ecological conditions. Despite tuber-gathering tasks being widely practiced by children and adolescents, little research has focused on the physical traits associated with digging ability. Here, we assess how age and energetic expenditure affect the performance of this extractive task. Using an experimental approach, the energetic cost of digging to extract simulated tubers is evaluated in a sample of 40 urban children and adolescents of both sexes to measure the intensity of the physical effort and the influence of several anatomical variables. Digging is a moderately vigorous activity for inexperienced girls and boys from 8 to 14 years old, and it requires significant physical effort depending on strength and body size. However, extracting subterranean resources is a task that may be performed effectively without previous training. Sex-specific and age-specific differences in the net energy expenditure of digging were detected, even though both sexes exhibited similar proficiency levels when performing the task. Our results highlight that both boys and girls spend considerable energy while digging, with differences largely driven by body size and age. Other factors beyond ability and experience, such as strength and body size, may influence the proficiency of juveniles in performing certain physically intensive foraging tasks, such as gathering tubers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ana Mateos
- National Research Center On Human Evolution (CENIEH), 09002, Burgos, Spain.
| | | | - Jesús Rodríguez
- National Research Center On Human Evolution (CENIEH), 09002, Burgos, Spain
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Lew-Levy S, Bombjaková D, Milks A, Kiabiya Ntamboudila F, Kline MA, Broesch T. Costly teaching contributes to the acquisition of spear hunting skill among BaYaka forager adolescents. Proc Biol Sci 2022; 289:20220164. [PMID: 35538787 PMCID: PMC9091853 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0164] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2022] [Accepted: 04/19/2022] [Indexed: 01/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Teaching likely evolved in humans to facilitate the faithful transmission of complex tasks. As the oldest evidenced hunting technology, spear hunting requires acquiring several complex physical and cognitive competencies. In this study, we used observational and interview data collected among BaYaka foragers (Republic of the Congo) to test the predictions that costlier teaching types would be observed at a greater frequency than less costly teaching in the domain of spear hunting and that teachers would calibrate their teaching to pupil skill level. To observe naturalistic teaching during spear hunting, we invited teacher-pupil groupings to spear hunt while wearing GoPro cameras. We analysed 68 h of footage totalling 519 teaching episodes. Most observed teaching events were costly. Direct instruction was the most frequently observed teaching type. Older pupils received less teaching and more opportunities to lead the spear hunt than their younger counterparts. Teachers did not appear to adjust their teaching to pupil experience, potentially because age was a more easily accessible heuristic for pupil skill than experience. Our study shows that costly teaching is frequently used to transmit complex tasks and that instruction may play a privileged role in the transmission of spear hunting knowledge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sheina Lew-Levy
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Daša Bombjaková
- Institute of Social Anthropology, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - Annemieke Milks
- Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, Reading, UK
| | - Francy Kiabiya Ntamboudila
- Faculté des Lettres, Arts, et Sciences Humaines, Marien Ngouabi University, Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo
| | - Michelle Anne Kline
- Division of Psychology and Centre for Culture and Evolution, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK
| | - Tanya Broesch
- Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada
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Boyette AH, Lew-Levy S, Jang H, Kandza V. Social ties in the Congo Basin: insights into tropical forest adaptation from BaYaka and their neighbours. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2022; 377:20200490. [PMID: 35249385 PMCID: PMC8899623 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0490] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2021] [Accepted: 01/05/2022] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Investigating past and present human adaptation to the Congo Basin tropical forest can shed light on how climate and ecosystem variability have shaped human evolution. Here, we first review and synthesize genetic, palaeoclimatological, linguistic and historical data on the peopling of the Congo Basin. While forest fragmentation led to the increased genetic and geographical divergence of forest foragers, these groups maintained long-distance connectivity. The eventual expansion of Bantu speakers into the Congo Basin provided new opportunities for forging inter-group links, as evidenced by linguistic shifts and historical accounts. Building from our ethnographic work in the northern Republic of the Congo, we show how these inter-group links between forest forager communities as well as trade relationships with neighbouring farmers facilitate adaptation to ecoregions through knowledge exchange. While researchers tend to emphasize forager-farmer interactions that began in the Iron Age, we argue that foragers' cultivation of relational wealth with groups across the region played a major role in the initial occupation of the Congo Basin and, consequently, in cultural evolution among the ancestors of contemporary peoples. This article is part of the theme issue 'Tropical forests in the deep human past'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam H. Boyette
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Sheina Lew-Levy
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Haneul Jang
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Vidrige Kandza
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
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Park PS. The Evolution of Cognitive Biases in Human Learning. J Theor Biol 2022; 541:111031. [PMID: 35143847 DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2022.111031] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2021] [Revised: 01/13/2022] [Accepted: 01/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Cognitive biases like underinference, the hard-easy effect, and recurrently non-monotonic confidence are evolutionarily puzzling when viewed as persistent flaws in how people learn from environmental feedback. To explain these empirically robust cognitive biases from an evolutionary perspective, we propose a model of ancestral human learning based on the cultural-evolutionary-theoretic hypothesis that the primary selection pressure acting on ancestral human cognition pertained not to learning individually from environmental feedback, but to socially learning task-specific knowledge. In our model-which is inspired by classical Bayesian models-an ancestral human learner (the student) attempts to learn task-specific knowledge from a role model, with the option of switching between different tasks and role models. Suppose that the student's method of learning from their role model is a priori uncertain-in that it can either be successful imitation learning or de facto innovation learning-and the ecological fitness costs of meaningfully retaining environmental feedback are high. Then, the student's fitness-maximizing strategy does not retain their environmental feedback and-depending on the choice of model parameters-can be characterized by all of the aforementioned cognitive biases. Specifically, in order for the evolutionarily optimal estimate of confidence in this learning environment to be recurrently non-monotonic, it is necessary (as long as the environment's marginal payoff function satisfies a plausible quantitative condition) that a positive proportion of ancestral humans' attempted imitation learning was unknowingly implemented as de facto innovation learning. Moreover, an ecologically rational strategy of selective social learning can plausibly cause the evolutionarily optimal estimate of confidence to be recurrently non-monotonic in the empirically documented way: general increase with an intermediate period of decrease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peter S Park
- Department of Mathematics, Harvard University, 1 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
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Lew-Levy S, Milks A, Kiabiya Ntamboudila F, Broesch T, Kline MA. BaYaka Adolescent Boys Nominate Accessible Adult Men as Preferred Spear Hunting Models. Current Anthropology 2021. [DOI: 10.1086/716853] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
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Davis HE, Crittenden AN, Scalise Sugiyama M. Ecological and Developmental Perspectives on Social Learning : Introduction to the Special Issue. Hum Nat 2021; 32:1-15. [PMID: 33876400 DOI: 10.1007/s12110-021-09394-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/22/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
In this special issue of Human Nature we explore the possible adaptive links between teaching and learning during childhood, and we aim to expand the dialogue on the ways in which the social sciences, and in particular current anthropological research, may better inform our shifting understanding of how these processes vary in different social and ecological environments. Despite the cross-disciplinary trend toward incorporating more behavioral and cognitive data outside of postindustrial state societies, much of the published cross-cultural data is presented as stand-alone population-level studies, making it challenging to extrapolate trends or incorporate both ecological and developmental perspectives. Here, contributors explore how human life history, ecological experience, cumulative culture, and ethnolinguistics impact social learning and child development in foraging and transitioning societies around the world. Using historical ethnographic data and qualitative and quantitative data from studies with contemporary populations, authors interrogate the array of factors that likely interact with cognitive development and learning. They provide contributions that explore the unique environmental, social, and cultural conditions that characterize such populations, offering key insights into processes of social learning, adaptive learning responses, and culture change. This series of articles demonstrates that children are taught culturally and environmentally salient skills in myriad ways, ranging from institutionalized instruction to brief, nuanced, and indirect instruction. Our hope is that this collection stimulates more research on the evolutionary and developmental implications associated with teaching and learning among humans.
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