Conditions under which long-term teaching contributes to the cumulative cultural evolution of technology

Author / Creator

Cultural Evolution Society 2021 (2021)

Conferences

Cultural Evolution Society 2021 Q&A session 09: Cumulative culture (2021)

Available as

Online

Summary

Objective: It has been argued that teaching promotes the accurate transmission of cultural traits and eventually leads to cumulative cultural evolution. However, several previous studies have provi...

Objective: It has been argued that teaching promotes the accurate transmission of cultural traits and eventually leads to cumulative cultural evolution. However, several previous studies have provided a disclaim to the argument. In the current study, we constructed a computational model of social learning under teaching to demonstrate that teaching plays a causal role in the emergence of cumulative cultural evolution. We also examined the conditions teaching promotes cumulative cultural evolution. Methods: Processes of acquiring complex technologies were modeled as a search problem in a complex random network with multiple goals. The reinforcement learning agents searched for better goals and taught their experiences to agents in the next generation. In the simulation, we implemented a trade-off between individual learning (an opportunity for innovation) and teaching (the processes of faithful transmission): long periods of teaching are required for accurate transmission of advanced technologies. However, the more extended time society invests in teaching, the less time is left for innovating advanced technologies by the younger generation. Results: Agent-based simulations revealed that the task difficulty moderates the positive influences of teaching on the cumulative cultural evolution: when the task was too difficult and advanced technologies could not be acquired by individual learning within a lifetime, spending a longer time on teaching, even at the expense of time for innovation, contributed to cumulative cultural evolution. On the contrary, the easier the task, the more time spent on innovation instead of teaching contributed to improving performance.

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