The Baldwin Effect

Proposed that an organism's ability to learn new behaviours (e.g. to acclimatise to a new stressor) will affect its reproductive success and will therefore have an effect on the genetic makeup of its species through natural selection. Places emphasis on the fact that the sustained behaviour of a species or group can shape the evolution of that species

Four Dimensions of Heredity and Evolution

1) Genetic inheritance systems 2) Non-DNA epigenetic inheritance systems 3) Behavioural inheritance systems many animals transmit information by behavioural means 4) Symbolic inheritance systems for humans, symbols - particularly language, plays a substantial role in our evolution

Cultural Evolution - Jablonka & Lamb (2014)

A system of socially transmitted patterns in a group of social animals The transmitted behaviors can be skills, practices, habits, beliefs “Cultural evolution can be defined as the change, through time, in the nature and frequency of socially transmitted preferences, patterns or products of behaviour in a population

Evolution

defined as a change in the distribution of characteristics in a population over time- can be powered not only by genetic inheritance but by cultural inheritance

Cultural Evolutionary Theory - Heyes (2018, p. 13)

Characteristics or ‘traits’, can increase of decrease in frequency, not only as they become more or less likely to be passed on to biological descendants via genetic mechanisms, but also as they become more or less likely to be passed on to cultural descendants, who may or may not be genetically related to their cultural descendants, through social interaction

Cultural Evolution

Mostly independent of genetic evolution as genetic variants typically have small effects, which are not equivalent across individuals Therefore, cultural differences between human groups are likely to be largely independent of their genes. The two systems can however intersect

Behavior-Influencing Substances

Means of transmittal a) Uterine environment b) Milk c) Saliva / breath d) Feces

Uterine Environment

Female rabbit given juniper berries, pups weaned prefer the berries even when given a foster mum who had never ate the berries

Milk

rabbit pups, mother was fed juniper berries after they were born, after nursing they preferred the berries rats, content of mothers milk influenced food preferences

Carrot juice (Mennella et al., 2001

6 month babies, mum consumed carrot juice while pregnant, babies prefer cereal with juice vs than with water same was true if mum drank juice in first 2 months of breastfeeding the amniotic fluid, placenta and milk transmit information

Saliva / Breath / Faeces

rodents, information about eating habits is transmitted through maternal saliva/breath when faecal pellets of normally fed rabbit mothers were replaced with those on a juniper diet, the young rabbits expressed a strong preference for juniper food faecal eating is common in young mammals

Filial Imprinting

Spalding discovered that ducklings and other chicks respond to the sight of the first large moving object they see, by following it and forming and attachment to it process occurs during the first three days after hatching For several days after hatching follow the mum, she knows where food and safety is, leads to a normally adaptive pattern of behaviour

Sexual imprinting

imprinted image of parents, learn characteristics of an appropriate mate Hazard for breeding endangered species, need to hide human and expose to animal dummy of own species

Non-Imitative Learning

UK 40's blue tits open foil top of milk bottles, spread to other species, specific actions of bottle top removers were not copied techniques acquired by individual trial and error, learnt through observation attention is outcome not the method information must be displayed, holistic, not random, not limited to parental transmission

Hereditable Repercussions

socially learned changes in feeding

(Motor) Imitation

vocal imitation in language motor imitation in development of culture evidence in chimpanzees, rats, dolphins, grey parrots, starlings

Imitative Learning: Key Features

Information, must be displayed, modular, not holistic Variants are not blind to function need "internal filter" to identify potentially useful variants Variations are targeted and culturally constructed simple rules to organize perceptions, emotions, learning (categories) type of info is structured by evolutionary history of its lineage

Traditions and Cumulative Evolution

Evolving new lifestyles Evidence of cumulative cultural evolution among nonhuman animals: Macaques on Koshima island “Japanese beach monkeys” Primatologists first started to provide food for the macaques Used to lure them from the forest to the beach

Japanese beach monkeys- Transmission and Adaptation

one started to wash potatoes in sea to get soil off, others followed then started to bite before to season with salt. this tradition trigger others later fed wheat, mixed with sand, put in water, sand sinks wheat floats, this spread to others, adult males last to learn started to play and swim in the sea, cumulative cultural change, new lifestyle hungry older males ate discarded fish by fishermen, habit spread may produce geographical separation or speciation