Whiten Andrew, Caldwell Christine A, Mesoudi Alex
Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9JP, UK.
Psychology, School of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK.
Curr Opin Psychol. 2016 Apr;8:15-21. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.09.002. Epub 2015 Sep 14.
Recent years have seen an enormous expansion and progress in studies of the cultural diffusion processes through which behaviour patterns, ideas and artifacts are transmitted within and between generations of humans and other animals. The first of two main approaches focuses on identifying, tracing and understanding cultural diffusion as it naturally occurs, an essential foundation to any science of culture. This endeavor has been enriched in recent years by sophisticated statistical methods and surprising new discoveries particularly in humans, other primates and cetaceans. This work has been complemented by a growing corpus of powerful, purpose-designed cultural diffusion experiments with captive and natural populations that have facilitated the rigorous identification and analysis of cultural diffusion in species from insects to humans.
近年来，关于文化传播过程的研究取得了巨大的进展。通过这些过程，行为模式、思想和人工制品在人类和其他动物的代际之间以及不同群体之间得以传播。两种主要方法中的第一种侧重于识别、追踪和理解文化传播的自然发生过程，这是任何文化科学的重要基础。近年来，复杂的统计方法和惊人的新发现丰富了这项工作，特别是在人类、其他灵长类动物和鲸类动物方面。越来越多针对圈养和自然种群精心设计的强大文化传播实验，补充了这项工作，这些实验有助于对从昆虫到人类等物种的文化传播进行严格的识别和分析。
