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Social Learning and Behavior Transmission - Coggle Diagram
Social Learning and Behavior Transmission
Introduction
Learning can provide an individual with the opportunity to gain experiences that will help it to better adapt to changes in its environment
Environments can change many times and in many ways throughout life
Social may be learning in some scenarios, because the risks with individual learning may be costly
Social Learning
Social learning in animals can present as acceptance/avoidance of novel foods, mate choices, and predator avoidance strategies
Can be learned by observing others or from artifacts produced by others
May require reasoning about others or one’s own behavior
Can include tool use or specialized grooming
May require an individual to understand their relationship with the demonstrator or the goal of their actions which involved sophisticated cognitive abilities
Imitation was considered one of the few traits that animals had in common with humans
Debate exists if animals can truly imitate with an emphasis being placed on what imitation really is
Imitation can be confused with social influence that lead to learning the same behaviors as others
Literature on social learning distinguishes terms for the different ways that learning can take place
Social Facilitation and Contagion
The presence of another individual may enhance or inhibit existing behavior in an individual, known as social facilitation
May also be known as social enhancement, defined as the motivational state of an individual being enhanced by another (increased or decreased motivation)
The mere presence of another can lead to the synchronization of behavior over space and time which is crucial in group living species in:
Group cohesion
Behavioral coordination
Foraging efficiency
Predator avoidance
Does not lead to complex behavior matching, but increases the opportunities in which observational learning can occur
When coordination of behavior occurs in two or more individuals, it is social contagion, because seeing another act in a species typical behavior can elicit the same response
Stimulus and Local Enhancement
When an individual’s attention is drawn to a stimulus by another individual, called stimulus enhancement
When an individual is drawn to a specific location because of the actions or byproducts of the actions of another individual, called local enhancement
Not always possible to distinguish the two due to an object or stimulus being associated with a location
Some have argued that stimulus and local enhancement are not social learning mechanisms, they are social influences that lead to trial and error learning
Emulation
Learning about the affordances of a task or changes in an environment as a result of a conspecific’s behavior
Four distinct aspects of emulation learning:
Setting a goal
Learning the physical properties of objects
Learning relationships among objects
Learning what can be done with an object
These changes take place in the environment are the primary focus of the learner
The demonstrator’s identity may be irrelevant in instances of emulation as long as the movements are observed
Other terms for emulation include goal enhancement and affordance learning
Does not require perspective taking and is more efficient in acquiring new information than imitation
Choosing to ignore irrelevant information or actions may be more efficient
Imitation
Linked with high copying fidelity that not only includes the same end results as the original demonstrator, but also any relevant or even irrelevant behaviors and actions
Varying perspectives and approaches to the study of imitation in animals led to the belief that imitation is a specific type of social learning
More cognitively advanced
May also require perspective taking or theory of the mind
Those that are more aware of the social affairs of others are better social learners
Best examples of imitation come from animals that have a theory of the mind
Teaching
Less common influence in animals
Active teaching of a behavior by a conspecific
An individual may perform a behavior in the presence of another group-member, but does not necessarily imply that they are actively teaching for the benefit of the observer
Differs from demonstrating because the teacher modifies its behavior due to the observer
Does not benefit the teacher, and may be a cost to the teacher
Observer learns faster/more efficiently than alone because of the teacher
Teaching by nonhuman animals is not limited to a taxonomic group, and nor not only seen in cognitively advanced species
Suggested that the act of teaching is a cooperative behavior facilitating learning in others
Traditions and Cultural Behaviors
Animal culture began in the island of Koshima where Japanese macaques washed sweet potatoes
Originated with one, spread to others within 10 years
Imitation is unlikely due to the slow spread of the behavior
Endured beyond the influence of the original innovator to future generations
Cultural behaviors can only be spread by complex social learning mechanisms like imitation
Stone-handling is another cultural behavior by Japanese macaques
May not have a specific functional purpose beyond social play
The best evidence in the variability of traditions is from the study of white faced capuchin monkeys in Costa Rika
Five social conventions were analyzed across social groups
Hand sniffing
Body part suckling
Finger in mouth game
Hair game
Toy game
Different food processing methods were described
Such as squirrel hunting by biting them on the back of the neck
Longitudinal studies of wild populations of chimpanzees in Africa
39 distinct behavioral variants were identified
For example, some use stones to crack open nuts
Handclasp grooming is an example of traditions with no direct survival benefits, only observed in some field sites
Cultural variations in wild orangutan populations in Southeast Asia
They are relatively solitary, but are still social
Social learning is limited by the number of social encounters between individuals
Exhibit six social signals and 10 specialized feeding techniques, two involving tool use
Correlations between the opportunities for social learning and the size of local repertoire
Captive Studies on Cultural Learning
Longitudinal studies in the wild are costly, and captive experiments allow for control of all instances of social influence
The two action task paradigm
Used to control for the effects of local and stimulus enhancement on social learning while examining the imitative abilities of subjects in observational learning experiments
Involves two distinct methods for solving a task:
Solving the task is demonstrated to an experimental subject before the subject is presented with the task
The subject only observes one of the two tasks
If a subject performs the same task as the demonstrator, it is a result of imitative learning
An advantage of the two action task is that it can be designed specifically for the physical abilities of a given species
Typically investigated test subjects in pairs and have suggested imitative or imitation like learning in the context of the two action task paradigm
Differences have been found in how socially acquired information spreads among group members and how new behaviors develop into group specific traditions
Does not necessarily determine what social influences maintain and spread a behavior to the point at which it becomes a group-wide tradition
Group diffusion task
Studies traditions in animals by investigating the diffusion of a behavior pattern throughout a social group
In the wild it is virtually impossible to study this
Provides us with further details about how a behavior spreads socially beyond the artificial dyadic context imposed upon subjects
The lack of persistent and thorough imitative abilities may be one of the key features that distinguishes the development and scope of cultural behaviors in humans from nonhuman animals
Whether imitation is a necessary component of culture remains debatable
Cumulative culture the human exhibits is noteworthy
Likely a combination of human ability for imitation, teaching, and language
With language providing the means for building upon past generations, imitation providing the fidelity to details necessary for producing cognitively complex behaviors, and teaching playing an important role in maintaining group social norms, as teaching allows for rewarding and punishing behaviors that fall outside the norm