Kevin Laland

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Papers by Kevin Laland

The Cultural Evolution of Technology and Science

by Kevin Laland, Emma Flynn, A. Mesoudi, and Stephen Shennan

Society, Technology, Language, and Religion, 2013

The evolution of technical innovation in primates

by Ana F. Navarrete and Kevin Laland

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Animal innovation defined and operationalized

by Grant Ramsey, Janet Mann, and Kevin Laland

Innovation is a key component of most definitions of culture and intelligence. Additionally, inno... more Innovation is a key component of most definitions of culture and intelligence. Additionally, innovations may affect a species’ ecology and evolution. Nonetheless, conceptual and empirical work on innovation has only recently begun. In particular, largely because the existing operational definition (first occurrence in a population) requires long-term studies of populations, there has
been no systematic study of innovation in wild animals. To facilitate such study, we have produced a new definition of innovation: Innovation is the process that generates in an individual a novel learned behavior that is not simply a consequence of social learning or environmental induction. Using this definition, we propose a new operational approach for distinguishing innovations in the field. The operational criteria employ information from the following sources: (1) the behavior’s geographic and local prevalence and individual frequency; (2) properties of the behavior, such as the social role of the behavior, the context in which the behavior is exhibited, and its similarity to other behaviors; (3) changes in the occurrence of the behavior over time; and (4) knowledge of spontaneous or experimentally induced behavior in captivity. These criteria do not require long-term studies at a single site, but information from multiple populations of a species will generally be needed. These criteria are systematized into a dichotomous key that can be used to assess whether a behavior observed in the field is likely to be an innovation

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13 Adaptive Trade-offs in the Use of Social and Personal Information

by Kevin Laland and Rachel Kendal

The effects of group size, rate of turnover and disruption to demonstration on the stability of foraging traditions in fish

by Rachel Kendal and Kevin Laland

Animal Behaviour, 2008

There is considerable laboratory-based evidence that social learning plays a role in the behaviou... more There is considerable laboratory-based evidence that social learning plays a role in the behaviour of many animals, including fish. However, a weakness of such studies in fish, is that in virtually all to date, the behaviour showed could be learned asocially, with the social influence merely accelerating the rate of learning. Lefebvre & Palameta (1988. Social Learning: Psychological and Biological Perspectives. pp. 141e164) argued that the most compelling evidence for social learning comes from studies where inexperienced animals are unlikely to learn the target behaviour by themselves. The present study is designed to address this concern, by employing a feeding tube task in which fish gain access to food by swimming in a manner that they would not normally show. Employing a transmission chain design, we show foraging traditions in guppies, Poecilia reticulata, and southern platyfish, Xiphophorus maculatus, in which shoal members continue to exploit the food available in the feeding tube, in spite of changes in the composition of the shoal due to the gradual removal of demonstrators. Two experiments provide strong evidence for social learning underlying traditional behaviour, such as migratory routes, in fish, and reveal how the stability of such traditions (duration within a population) is affected by group size (2, 4 or 6 fish) and rate of turnover (16.5%, 25% or 50% per day). While larger shoals of fish showed more stable traditions than smaller shoals, this was found to be related to their slower rate of turnover rather than a direct effect of group size.

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Trade-offs in the adaptive use of social and asocial learning

by Kevin Laland and Rachel Kendal

Advances in the Study of …, 2005

format_quoteAssumption that using social information guarantees fitness benefits is challenged; individuals face trade-offs between information costs and reliability.format_quote

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Developmental niche construction

by Emma Flynn and Kevin Laland

Niche construction is the modification of components of the environment through an organism's act... more Niche construction is the modification of components of the environment through an organism's activities. Humans modify their environments mainly through ontogenetic and cultural processes, and it is this reliance on learning, plasticity and culture that lends human niche construction a special potency. In this paper we aim to facilitate discussion between researchers interested in niche construction and those interested in human cognitive development by highlighting some of the related processes. We discuss the transmission of culturally relevant information, how the human mind is a symbol-generating and artefact-devising system, and how these processes are bi-directional, with infants and children both being directed, and directing, their own development. We reflect on these in the light of four approaches: natural pedagogy, activity theory, distributed cognition and situated learning. Throughout, we highlight pertinent examples in non-humans that parallel or further explicate the processes discussed. Finally we offer three future directions; two involving the use of new techniques in the realms of neuroscience and modelling, and the third suggesting exploration of changes in the effects of niche construction across the lifespan.

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Niche Construction and Gene-Culture Coevolution: An Evolutionary Basis for the Human Sciences

Perspectives in Ethology, 2000

... uk Kevin N. Laland Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour University of Cambridge Madingley, Camb... more

Ecological Inheritance and Cultural Inheritance: What Are They and How Do They Differ?

Biological Theory, 2011

ABSTRACT Niche construction theory (NCT) is distinctive for being explicit in recognizing environ... more ABSTRACT Niche construction theory (NCT) is distinctive for being explicit in recognizing environmental modification by organisms—niche construction—and its legacy—ecological inheritance—to be evolutionary processes in their own right. Humans are widely regarded as champion niche constructors, largely as a direct result of our capacity for the cultural transmission of knowledge and its expression in human behavior, engineering, and technology. This raises the question of how human ecological inheritance relates to human cultural inheritance. If NCT is to provide a conceptual framework for the human sciences, then it is important that the relationship between these two legacies is clear. We suggest that cultural processes and cultural inheritance can be viewed as the primary means by which humans engage in the universal process of niche construction.

Trade‐Offs in the Adaptive Use of Social and Asocial Learning

by Kevin Laland and Rachel Kendal

Advances in The Study of Behavior, 2005

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Bayesian Spatial NBDA for Diffusion Data with Home-Base Coordinates

PloS one, 2015

Network-based diffusion analysis (NBDA) is a statistical method that allows the researcher to ide... more Network-based diffusion analysis (NBDA) is a statistical method that allows the researcher to identify and quantify a social influence on the spread of behaviour through a population. Hitherto, NBDA analyses have not directly modelled spatial population structure. Here we present a spatial extension of NBDA, applicable to diffusion data where the spatial locations of individuals in the population, or of their home bases or nest sites, are available. The method is based on the estimation of inter-individual associations (for association matrix construction) from the mean inter-point distances as represented on a spatial point pattern of individuals, nests or home bases. We illustrate the method using a simulated dataset, and show how environmental covariates (such as that obtained from a satellite image, or from direct observations in the study area) can also be included in the analysis. The analysis is conducted in a Bayesian framework, which has the advantage that prior knowledge o...

Does song complexity correlate with problem-solving performance in flocks of zebra finches?

Animal Behaviour, 2014

The 'cognitive capacity hypothesis' states that song complexity could potentially be used by pros... more The 'cognitive capacity hypothesis' states that song complexity could potentially be used by prospective mates to assess an individual's overall cognitive ability. Several recent studies have provided support for the cognitive capacity hypothesis, demonstrating that individuals with more complex songs or larger song repertoires performed better on various learning tasks. These studies all measured individuals' learning performance in social isolation. However, for gregarious species such as the zebra finch, Taeniopygia guttata, testing individuals in a group context is socially and ecologically more relevant if song complexity is to be a meaningful indicator of cognitive ability. We tested whether song complexity correlated with performance on a suite of novel foraging problems in flocks of male zebra finches, starting by replicating the lid-flipping task used by Boogert et al. (Animal Behaviour, 2008, who provided the first support for the cognitive capacity hypothesis in zebra finches isolated during testing. We also presented flocks with a barrier task and two types of novel food. We found that males' song complexity scores did not correlate with their latency to solve any of these novel foraging problems in a social context. Individuals that solved the tasks likewise did not have more complex songs than nonsolvers. However, performance was positively correlated across the different foraging tasks. These results raise doubts as to whether the song complexity measures used by Boogert et al. are predictors of problem-solving performance, and perhaps cognitive ability, in a more ecologically relevant, social setting. Stress responsiveness might instead explain the association between song complexity and foraging task performance among isolated zebra finches reported by Boogert et al. Ó

format_quotePositive correlations were found across various problem-solving tasks, indicating that individuals with faster latencies performed better overall in cognitive tasks.format_quote

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The Cultural Evolution of Technology and Science

by Claudio Tennie and Kevin Laland

This chapter explores how the principles and methods of cultural evolution can inform our underst... more This chapter explores how the principles and methods of cultural evolution can inform our understanding of technology and science. Both technology and science are prime examples of cumulative cultural evolution, with each generation preserving and building upon the achievements of prior generations. a key benefit of an evolutionnary approach to technological or scientific change is "population thinking", where broad trends and patterns are explained in terms of individual-level mechanisms of variation, selection, and transmission. This chapter outlines some of these mechanisms and their implications for technological change, including sources of innovation, types of social learning, facilitatory developmental factors, and cultural transmission mechanisms. The role of external representations and human-constructed environments in technological evolution are explored, and factors are examined which determine the varying rates of technological change over time: from intrinsic characteristics of single technological traits, such as efficacy or manufacturing costs, to larger socials and population-level factors, such as population size or social institutions. Science can be viewed as both a product of cultural evolution as well as a form of cultural evolution in its own right. Science and technology constitute separate yet interacting evolutionnary processes. Outstanding issues and promising avenues for future investigation are highlighted and potential applications of this work are notes.

Social Learning, Innovation, and Intelligence in Fish

Comparative Vertebrate Cognition, 2004

Social learning refers to learning that results from exposure to the behavior of other individual... more Social learning refers to learning that results from exposure to the behavior of other individuals. It enables animals to acquire locally adaptive information about beneficial or dangerous situations from more experienced conspecifics and heterospecifics, thus avoiding some of the risks associated with trial and error learning (Galef, 1995; Giraldeau and Caraco, 2000; Laland et al., 1993, 1996). Many animals are

Comparative Perspectives on Human Innovation

Contributions from Evolutionary Anthropology, 2009

$Figure 8.3 Averages from 2002-2006 with range of observed yu over the interval Table 8.1 Cumulative turnover in the top five keywords, as the fraction of the top five. Filled symbols and solid lines show physical sciences; open symbols and dashed lines show social sciences. In (a), words reentering the top five are counted as turnover, whereas in (b), turnover refers only to words making their first appearance in the top five. For the older paradigms (Bordieu 1977; Witten and Sander 1981), the count is begun at zero in 1994; for the newer articles (Barabasi and Albert 1999; Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998), the count begins the year after publication.$

$Cumulative black-and-white-television-set adoption curves for the Bass, threshold, and combined models. The Bass curves were fitted to actual sales data, whereas the threshold curves are based on income distribution and on the exogenous growth-adjusted price trend. Threshold was set as a variable fraction of income. Figure 12.14 differs in that we assume a variable proportion of income as discretionary in the combined model, which now has Bass parameters p = 0.035, g = 0.35. It is evident that the threshold distribution predicts the correct timescale for the diffusion process and that the social-contagion component of the combined model improves the fit to the Bass curves by delaying takeoff in the higher income groups.$

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Cultural Niche Construction: An Introduction

Biological Theory, 2011

Niche construction is the process whereby organisms, through their activities and choices, modify... more Niche construction is the process whereby organisms, through their activities and choices, modify their own and each other's niches. By transforming naturalselection pressures, niche construction generates feedback in evolution at various different levels. Niche-constructing species play important ecological roles by creating habitats and resources used by other species and thereby affecting the flow of energy and matter through ecosystems-a process often referred to as ''ecosystem engineering.'' An important emphasis of niche construction theory (NCT) is that acquired characters play an evolutionary role through transforming selective environments. This is particularly relevant to human evolution, where our species has engaged in extensive environmental modification through cultural practices. Humans can construct developmental environments that feed back to affect how individuals learn and develop and the diseases to which they are exposed. Here we provide an introduction to NCT and illustrate some of its more important implications for the human sciences.

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Erratum to ‘Bateman's principles and human sex roles’

Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2013

In 1948, Angus J. Bateman reported a stronger relationship between mating and reproductive succes... more In 1948, Angus J. Bateman reported a stronger relationship between mating and reproductive success in male fruit flies compared with females, and concluded that selection should universally favour 'an undiscriminating eagerness in the males and a discriminating passivity in the females' to obtain mates. The conventional view of promiscuous, undiscriminating males and coy, choosy females has also been applied to our own species. Here, we challenge the view that evolutionary theory prescribes stereotyped sex roles in human beings, firstly by reviewing Bateman's principles and recent sexual selection theory and, secondly, by examining data on mating behaviour and reproductive success in current and historic human populations. We argue that human mating strategies are unlikely to conform to a single universal pattern.

format_quoteFemale animals can benefit from polyandry, gaining advantages like reduced infanticide risk or assurance of fertilization.format_quote

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Perching but not foraging networks predict the spread of novel foraging skills in starlings

Behavioural processes, 2014

The directed social learning hypothesis suggests that information does not spread evenly through ... more The directed social learning hypothesis suggests that information does not spread evenly through animal groups, but rather individual characteristics and patterns of physical proximity guide the social transmission of information along specific pathways. Network-based diffusion analysis (NBDA) allows researchers to test whether information spreads following a social network. However, the explanatory power of different social networks has rarely been compared, and current models do not easily accommodate random effects (e.g. allowing for individuals within groups to correlate in their asocial solving rates). We tested whether the spread of two novel foraging skills through captive starling groups was affected by individual- and group-level random and fixed effects (i.e. sex, age, body condition, dominance rank and demonstrator status) and perching or foraging networks. We extended NBDA to include random effects and conducted model discrimination in a Bayesian context. We found that s...

The animal cultures debate

Trends in ecology & evolution, 2006

Recent interest in animal cultures has been fuelled by high-profile reports of intra- and interpo... more Recent interest in animal cultures has been fuelled by high-profile reports of intra- and interpopulation differences in the behavioural repertoires of primates and cetaceans, consistent with the existence of socially learned traditions. Several studies have mapped spatial differences in behaviour, revealing a mosaic of behavioural phenotypes within species. The dominant current approach attempts to determine whether this is cultural variation by excluding asocial learning, ecological or genetic factors. However, claims of animal cultures remain controversial because such comparisons are subject to weaknesses; thus, new approaches to isolating the influence of culture on behaviour are required. Here we suggest that, rather than attributing behaviour to explanatory categories, researchers would often be better advised to partition variance in behaviour to alternative sources.

format_quoteHumpback whales change 37% of their song annually, suggesting cultural transmission rather than genetic influence on song variations.format_quote

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A theoretical investigation of the role of social transmission in evolution

Ethology and Sociobiology, 1992

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