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Article
Open AccessCognitive flexibility supports the development of cumulative cultural learning in children
The scale of cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) is a defining characteristic of humans. Despite marked scientific interest in CCE, the cognitive underpinnings supporting its development remain understudied. W...
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Reference Work Entry In depth
Copying
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Reference Work Entry In depth
Artificial Fruit
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Reference Work Entry In depth
Cumulative Culture
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Reference Work Entry In depth
Culture
Once a controversial subject, it is now broadly accepted that many nonhuman animals display culture, sometimes entailing significant complexity. This can involve substantial within-species and between-group va...
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Article
Open AccessThe reach of gene–culture coevolution in animals
Culture (behaviour based on socially transmitted information) is present in diverse animal species, yet how it interacts with genetic evolution remains largely unexplored. Here, we review the evidence for gene...
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Living Reference Work Entry In depth
Artificial Fruit
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Article
Open AccessChimpanzees demonstrate individual differences in social information use
Studies of transmission biases in social learning have greatly informed our understanding of how behaviour patterns may diffuse through animal populations, yet within-species inter-individual variation in soci...
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Article
Open AccessThe pervasive role of social learning in primate lifetime development
In recent decades, an accelerating research effort has exploited a substantial diversity of methodologies to garner mounting evidence for social learning and culture in many spe...
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Article
Open AccessChimpanzees prioritise social information over pre-existing behaviours in a group context but not in dyads
How animal communities arrive at homogeneous behavioural preferences is a central question for studies of cultural evolution. Here, we investigated whether chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) would relinquish a pre-exi...
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Living Reference Work Entry In depth
Cumulative Culture
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Living Reference Work Entry In depth
Culture
Once a controversial subject, it is now broadly accepted that many nonhuman animals display culture, sometimes entailing significant complexity. This can involve substantial within-species and between-group va...
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Chapter
Culture and Selective Social Learning in Wild and Captive Primates
Once thought to be a unique human trait, the presence of culture in non-human primates has been confirmed and studied by researchers for several decades. What has been discovered is evidence for between-group ...
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Article
Open AccessFoundations of cumulative culture in apes: improved foraging efficiency through relinquishing and combining witnessed behaviours in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)
A vital prerequisite for cumulative culture, a phenomenon often asserted to be unique to humans, is the ability to modify behaviour and flexibly switch to more productive or efficient alternatives. Here, we fi...
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Chapter
The Evolution of Hominin Culture and Its Ancient Pre-hominin Foundations
This chapter examines the of culture in the broad evolutionary context of animal behavior, thus delineating the ancient foundations of the series of steps that eventuated in culture. Focusing then on , fu...
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Article
Open AccessMutual medication in capuchin monkeys – Social anointing improves coverage of topically applied anti-parasite medicines
Wild and captive capuchin monkeys will anoint themselves with a range of strong smelling substances including millipedes, ants, limes and onions. Hypotheses for the function of the behaviour range from medicin...
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Article
Wild vervet monkeys copy alternative methods for opening an artificial fruit
Experimental studies of animal social learning in the wild remain rare, especially those that employ the most discriminating tests in which alternative means to complete naturalistic tasks are seeded in differ...
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Article
Open AccessSelective and contagious prosocial resource donation in capuchin monkeys, chimpanzees and humans
Prosocial acts benefitting others are widespread amongst humans. By contrast, chimpanzees have failed to demonstrate such a disposition in several studies, leading some authors to conclude that the forms of pr...
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Article
Open AccessSocial networks in primates: smart and tolerant species have more efficient networks
Network optimality has been described in genes, proteins and human communicative networks. In the latter, optimality leads to the efficient transmission of information with a minimum number of connections. Whi...
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Article
Incipient tradition in wild chimpanzees
The adoption of a new form of tool use has been observed to spread along social-network pathways in a chimpanzee community. The finding offers the first direct evidence of cultural diffusion in these animals i...
