Division of Psychology, University of Stirling.
Top Cogn Sci. 2020 Apr;12(2):673-689. doi: 10.1111/tops.12391. Epub 2018 Oct 30.
In humans, cultural evolutionary processes are capable of shaping our cognition, because the conceptual tools we learn from others enable mental feats which otherwise would be beyond our capabilities. This is possible because human culture supports the intergenerational accumulation of skills and knowledge, such that later generations can benefit from the experience and exploration efforts of their predecessors. However, it remains unclear how exactly human social transmission supports the accumulation of advantageous traits, and why we see little evidence of this in the natural behavior of other species. Thus, it is difficult to know whether the cognitive abilities of other animals might be similarly scaffolded by processes of cultural evolution. In this article, I discuss how experimental studies of cultural evolution have contributed to our understanding of human cumulative culture, as well as some of the limitations of these approaches. I also discuss how similar research designs can be used to evaluate the potential for cumulative culture in other species. Such research may be able to clarify what distinguishes human cumulative culture from related phenomena in nonhumans, shedding light on the issue of whether other species also have the potential to develop cognitive capacities that are outcomes of cultural evolution.
在人类中，文化进化过程能够塑造我们的认知，因为我们从他人那里习得的概念工具使我们能够完成原本力所不及的思维壮举。之所以如此，是因为人类文化支持技能和知识的代际积累，使得后代能够从前辈的经验和探索努力中受益。然而，目前尚不清楚人类社会传播究竟如何支持有利特征的积累，以及为什么在其他物种的自然行为中几乎没有证据表明这一点。因此，我们很难知道其他动物的认知能力是否可能也通过文化进化过程得到类似的支撑。在本文中，我将讨论文化进化的实验研究如何帮助我们理解人类的累积文化，以及这些方法的一些局限性。我还将讨论如何使用类似的研究设计来评估其他物种中累积文化的潜力。此类研究可能有助于阐明人类累积文化与非人类相关现象的区别，揭示其他物种是否也有可能发展出受文化进化影响的认知能力。
