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My new paper with @FrancysSubiaul and Eric Patterson is out now!
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2019.0442
as part of the Philosophical Transactions B @RSocPublishing issue on ritual, alongside lots of other interesting work:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/375/1805
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https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2019.0442
as part of the Philosophical Transactions B @RSocPublishing issue on ritual, alongside lots of other interesting work:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/375/1805
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One often hears that children are good at social learning.
So we asked: Do children really learn better socially than they do individually? How about orangutans?
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So we asked: Do children really learn better socially than they do individually? How about orangutans?
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We used 2 touchscreen sequencing games to explore these questions: one uses a content-based rule (top row of this picture) and one uses a spatial rule (bottom row of this picture).
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We tested this within subjects. Kids (3-yr-olds & 5-yr-olds) & orangutans got info in each of our conditions. They learned new sequences (i) on their own (individual recall condition), (ii) from a computer demo (ghost), or (iii) by watching an adult enter a sequence (social)
For orangutans, learning was somewhat limited in most conditions; they did best in the individual recall condition for both games. This result makes sense in the context of other ape learning studies, which tend to show limited use of social learning in complex tasks.
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The children showed more of a mosaic pattern of learning, depending on the game, the kind of demonstration, and their age. (Image shows results for the content-based game.)
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The striking difference is that children, especially 5-year-olds, were able to make use of vicarious information (the information from a computer or from an adult), which orangutans did much less of.
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How does this relate to ritual?
The only way to learn the rituals of one's community is to watch & learn from others.
Evolutionarily, we cannot say whether humans' aptitude for vicarious learning came first, the practice of rituals came first, or the two co-evolved.
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The only way to learn the rituals of one's community is to watch & learn from others.
Evolutionarily, we cannot say whether humans' aptitude for vicarious learning came first, the practice of rituals came first, or the two co-evolved.
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Many thanks to @GWtweets @gwCASHP @NationalZoo @NMNH @TheLeakeyFndtn and @NSF for supporting various pieces of this study!
Let me know if you have questions about the study, or trouble downloading it from the link above (open access for now due to covid-19).
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Let me know if you have questions about the study, or trouble downloading it from the link above (open access for now due to covid-19).
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