In recent years, researchers from many disciplines have included the concept of "culture" among their explicatory tools. While this is a welcome development, the notion of culture used is often not scrutinised. In particular, culture is usually equated to socially learned – or "copied" – behaviour or information. In his talk, Alberto will present two models (one specific to chimpanzee populations and one more general) where "cultural" phenomena are produced without a neat distinction between social and individual learning. He will conclude by discussing in which cases conflating "culture" with "socially learned behaviour" or, related, assuming a clear distinction between individual and social learning, can be problematic in cultural evolution research.
Cultural Evolution Seminar: The culture that wasn't?
EVENT
Date:
17 December 2019, 3.00 PM
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17 December 2019, 4.00 PM
Venue: Wallenberglaboratoriet, Lilla Frescativägen 7
Venue: Wallenberglaboratoriet, Lilla Frescativägen 7
Alberto Acerbi, from the Centre for Culture and Evolution at Brunel University, will explain why individual and social learning can often not be distinguished.
Last updated:
January 10, 2020
Source: CEK