The Experts below are selected from a list of 113757 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Alex Mesoudi - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Cultural Evolution of emotional expression in 50 years of song lyrics
Evolutionary Human Sciences, 2019Co-Authors: Charlotte Olivia Brand, Alberto Acerbi, Alex MesoudiAbstract:Popular music offers a rich source of data that provides insights into long-term Cultural Evolutionary dynamics. One major trend in popular music, as well as other Cultural products such as literary fiction, is an increase over time in negatively valenced emotional content, and a decrease in positively valenced emotional content. Here we use two large datasets containing lyrics from n = 4913 and n = 159,015 pop songs respectively and spanning 1965–2015, to test whether Cultural transmission biases derived from the Cultural Evolution literature can explain this trend towards emotional negativity. We find some evidence of content bias (negative lyrics do better in the charts), prestige bias (best-selling artists are copied) and success bias (best-selling songs are copied) in the proliferation of negative lyrics. However, the effects of prestige and success bias largely disappear when unbiased transmission is included in the models, which assumes that the occurrence of negative lyrics is predicted by their past frequency. We conclude that the proliferation of negative song lyrics may be explained partly by content bias, and partly by undirected, unbiased Cultural transmission.
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Cultural Evolution of emotional expression in 50 years of song lyrics
SocArXiv, 2019Co-Authors: Charlotte Olivia Brand, Alberto Acerbi, Alex MesoudiAbstract:The Cultural dynamics of music has recently become a popular avenue of research in the field of Cultural Evolution, reflecting a growing interest in art and popular culture more generally. Just as biologists seek to explain population-level trends in genetic Evolution in terms of micro-Evolutionary processes such as selection, drift and migration, Cultural Evolutionists have sought to explain population-level Cultural phenomena in terms of underlying social, psychological and demographic factors. Primary amongst these factors are learning biases, describing how Cultural items are socially transmitted from person to person. As big datasets become more openly available and workable, and statistical modelling techniques become more powerful, efficient and user-friendly, describing population-level dynamics in terms of simple, individual-level learning biases is becoming more feasible. Here we test for the presence of learning biases in two large datasets of popular song lyrics dating from 1965-2015. We find some evidence of content bias, prestige bias and success bias in the proliferation of negative lyrics, and suggest that negative expression of emotions in music, and perhaps art generally, provides an avenue for people to not only process and express their own negative emotions, but also benefit from the knowledge that prestigious others experience similarly negative emotions as they do.
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pursuing darwin s curious parallel prospects for a science of Cultural Evolution
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2017Co-Authors: Alex MesoudiAbstract:In the past few decades, scholars from several disciplines have pursued the curious parallel noted by Darwin between the genetic Evolution of species and the Cultural Evolution of beliefs, skills, knowledge, languages, institutions, and other forms of socially transmitted information. Here, I review current progress in the pursuit of an Evolutionary science of culture that is grounded in both biological and Evolutionary theory, but also treats culture as more than a proximate mechanism that is directly controlled by genes. Both genetic and Cultural Evolution can be described as systems of inherited variation that change over time in response to processes such as selection, migration, and drift. Appropriate differences between genetic and Cultural change are taken seriously, such as the possibility in the latter of nonrandomly guided variation or transformation, blending inheritance, and one-to-many transmission. The foundation of Cultural Evolution was laid in the late 20th century with population-genetic style models of Cultural microEvolution, and the use of phylogenetic methods to reconstruct Cultural macroEvolution. Since then, there have been major efforts to understand the sociocognitive mechanisms underlying cumulative Cultural Evolution, the consequences of demography on Cultural Evolution, the empirical validity of assumed social learning biases, the relative role of transformative and selective processes, and the use of quantitative phylogenetic and multilevel selection models to understand past and present dynamics of society-level change. I conclude by highlighting the interdisciplinary challenges of studying Cultural Evolution, including its relation to the traditional social sciences and humanities.
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higher frequency of social learning in china than in the west shows Cultural variation in the dynamics of Cultural Evolution
Proceedings of The Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2015Co-Authors: Alex Mesoudi, Lei Chang, Keelin Margaret MurrayAbstract:Cultural Evolutionary models have identified a range of conditions under which social learning (copying others) is predicted to be adaptive relative to asocial learning (learning on one's own), particularly in humans where socially learned information can accumulate over successive generations. However, Cultural Evolution and behavioural economics experiments have consistently shown apparently maladaptive under-utilization of social information in Western populations. Here we provide experimental evidence of Cultural variation in people's use of social learning, potentially explaining this mismatch. People in mainland China showed significantly more social learning than British people in an artefact-design task designed to assess the adaptiveness of social information use. People in Hong Kong, and Chinese immigrants in the UK, resembled British people in their social information use, suggesting a recent shift in these groups from social to asocial learning due to exposure to Western culture. Finally, Chinese mainland participants responded less than other participants to increased environmental change within the task. Our results suggest that learning strategies in humans are Culturally variable and not genetically fixed, necessitating the study of the ‘social learning of social learning strategies' whereby the dynamics of Cultural Evolution are responsive to social processes, such as migration, education and globalization.
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Cultural Evolution how darwinian theory can explain human culture and synthesize the social sciences
2011Co-Authors: Alex MesoudiAbstract:Charles Darwin changed the course of scientific thinking by showing how Evolution accounts for the stunning diversity and biological complexity of life on earth. Recently, there has also been increased interest in the social sciences in how Darwinian theory can explain human culture. Covering a wide range of topics, including fads, public policy, the spread of religion, and herd behavior in markets, Alex Mesoudi shows that human culture is itself an Evolutionary process that exhibits the key Darwinian mechanisms of variation, competition, and inheritance. This cross-disciplinary volume focuses on the ways Cultural phenomena can be studied scientifically - from theoretical modeling to lab experiments, archaeological fieldwork to ethnographic studies - and shows how apparently disparate methods can complement one another to the mutual benefit of the various social science disciplines. Along the way, this book reveals how new insights arise from looking at culture from an Evolutionary angle. "Cultural Evolution" provides a thought-provoking argument that Darwinian Evolutionary theory can both unify different branches of inquiry and enhance understanding of human behavior.
Allan J Baker - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a population memetics approach to Cultural Evolution in chaffinch song differentiation among populations
Evolution, 1994Co-Authors: Alejandro Lynch, Allan J BakerAbstract:We investigated Cultural Evolution in populations of common chaffinches (Fringilla coelebs) in the Atlantic islands (Azores, Madeira, and Canaries) and neighboring continental regions (Morocco and Iberia) by employing a population-memetic approach. To quantify differentiation, we used the concept of a song meme, defined as a single syllable or a series of linked syllables capable of being transmitted. The levels of Cultural differentiation are higher among the Canaries populations than among the Azorean ones, even though the islands are on average closer to each other geographically. This is likely the result of reduced levels of migration, lower population sizes, and bottlenecks (possibly during the colonization of these populations) in the Canaries; all these factors produce a smaller effective population size and therefore accentuate the effects of differentiation by random drift. Significant levels of among-population differentiation in the Azores, in spite of substantial levels of migration, attest to the differentiating effects of high mutation rates of memes, which allow the accumulation of new mutants in different populations before migration can disperse them throughout the entire region.
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a population memetics approach to Cultural Evolution in chaffinch song meme diversity within populations
The American Naturalist, 1993Co-Authors: Alejandro Lynch, Allan J BakerAbstract:We investigated Cultural Evolution in populations of common chaffinches (Fringilla coelebs) in the Atlantic islands (Azores, Madeira, Canaries) and neighboring continental regions (Morocco, Iberia) by employing a population memetics approach. To quantify variability within populations, we used the concept of a song meme, defined as a single syllable or a series of linked syllables capable of being transmitted. The frequency distribution of memes within populations generally fit a neutral model in which there is an equilibrium between mutation, migration, and drift, which suggests that memes are functionally equivalent. The diversity of memes of single syllables is significantly greater in the Azores compared to all other regions, consistent with higher population densities of chaffinches there. On the other hand, memes of two to five syllables have greater diversity in Atlantic island and Moroccan populations compared to their Iberian counterparts. This higher diversity emanates from a looser syntax and increased recombination in songs, presumably because of relaxed selection for distinctive songs in these peripheral and depauperate avifaunas. We urge comparative population memetic studies of other species of songbirds and predict that they will lead to a formulation of a general theory for the Cultural Evolution of bird song analogous to population genetics theory for biological traits.
Franz J Weissing - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Cultural Evolution of cooperation the interplay between forms of social learning and group selection
Evolution and Human Behavior, 2013Co-Authors: Lucas Molleman, Andres E Quinones, Franz J WeissingAbstract:Abstract The role of Cultural group selection in the Evolution of human cooperation is hotly debated. It has been argued that group selection is more effective in Cultural Evolution than in genetic Evolution, because some forms of Cultural transmission (conformism and/or the tendency to follow a leader) reduce intra-group variation while creating stable Cultural variation between groups. This view is supported by some models, while other models lead to contrasting and sometimes opposite conclusions. A consensus view has not yet been achieved, partly because the modelling studies differ in their assumptions on the dynamics of Cultural transmission and the mode of group selection. To clarify matters, we created an individual-based model allowing for a systematic comparison of how different social learning rules governing Cultural transmission affect the Evolution of cooperation in a group-structured population. We consider two modes of group selection (selection by group replacement or by group contagion) and systematically vary the frequency and impact of group-level processes. From our simulations we conclude that the outcome of Cultural Evolution strongly reflects the interplay of social learning rules and the mode of group selection. For example, conformism hampers or even prevents the Evolution of cooperation if group selection acts via contagion; it may facilitate the Evolution of cooperation if group selection acts via replacement. In contrast, leader-imitation promotes the Evolution of cooperation under a broader range of conditions.
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effects of conformism on the Cultural Evolution of social behaviour
PLOS ONE, 2013Co-Authors: Lucas Molleman, Franz J WeissingAbstract:Models of Cultural Evolution study how the distribution of Cultural traits changes over time. The dynamics of Cultural Evolution strongly depends on the way these traits are transmitted between individuals by social learning. Two prominent forms of social learning are payoff-based learning (imitating others that have higher payoffs) and conformist learning (imitating locally common behaviours). How payoff-based and conformist learning affect the Cultural Evolution of cooperation is currently a matter of lively debate, but few studies systematically analyse the interplay of these forms of social learning. Here we perform such a study by investigating how the interaction of payoff-based and conformist learning affects the outcome of Cultural Evolution in three social contexts. First, we develop a simple argument that provides insights into how the outcome of Cultural Evolution will change when more and more conformist learning is added to payoff-based learning. In a social dilemma (e.g. a Prisoner’s Dilemma), conformism can turn cooperation into a stable equilibrium; in an evasion game (e.g. a Hawk-Dove game or a Snowdrift game) conformism tends to destabilize the polymorphic equilibrium; and in a coordination game (e.g. a Stag Hunt game), conformism changes the basin of attraction of the two equilibria. Second, we analyse a stochastic event-based model, revealing that conformism increases the speed of Cultural Evolution towards pure equilibria. Individual-based simulations as well as the analysis of the diffusion approximation of the stochastic model by and large confirm our findings. Third, we investigate the effect of an increasing degree of conformism on Cultural group selection in a group-structured population. We conclude that, in contrast to statements in the literature, conformism hinders rather than promotes the Evolution of cooperation.
Inga A Ivanova - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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toward a calculus of redundancy signification codification and anticipation in Cultural Evolution
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2018Co-Authors: Loet Leydesdorff, Mark W Johnson, Inga A IvanovaAbstract:This article considers the relationships among meaning generation, selection, and the dynamics of discourse from a variety of perspectives ranging from information theory and biology to sociology. Following Husserl's idea of a horizon of meanings in intersubjective communication, we propose a way in which, using Shannon's equations, the generation and selection of meanings from a horizon of possibilities can be considered probabilistically. The information‐theoretical dynamics we articulate considers a process of meaning generation within Cultural Evolution: information is imbued with meaning, and through this process, the number of options for the selection of meaning in discourse proliferates. The redundancy of possible meanings contributes to a codification of expectations within the discourse. Unlike hardwired DNA, the codes of nonbiological systems can coevolve with the variations. Spanning horizons of meaning, the codes structure the communications as selection environments that shape discourses. Discursive knowledge can be considered as meta‐coded communication that enables us to translate among differently coded communications. The dynamics of discursive knowledge production can thus infuse the historical dynamics with a Cultural Evolution by adding options, that is, by increasing redundancy. A calculus of redundancy is presented as an indicator whereby these dynamics of discourse and meaning may be explored empirically.
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toward a calculus of redundancy signification codification and anticipation in Cultural Evolution
Social Science Research Network, 2017Co-Authors: Loet Leydesdorff, Mark W Johnson, Inga A IvanovaAbstract:Whereas the generation of Shannon-type information is coupled to the second law of thermodynamics, redundancy—that is, the complement of information to the maximum entropy—can be increased by making further distinctions. The dynamics of discursive knowledge production can thus infuse the historical dynamics with a Cultural Evolution. Providing the information with meaning first proliferates the number of options. Meanings are provided with hindsight at positions in the vector space, as against relations in the network space. The main axes (eigenvectors) of the vector space map the codes of the communication spanning horizons of meaning; the codes structure the communications as selection mechanisms. Unlike hard-wired DNA, the codes of non-biological systems co-evolve with the variation. Discursive knowledge can be considered as meta-coded communication which enables us to entertain models of the processing of meaning and information. This reinforces the hindsight perspective and can turn codification reflexively into coding anticipation. The dynamics of information, meaning, and knowledge can be evaluated empirically using the sign of mutual information as an indicator.
Olga A Filatova - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Cultural Evolution of killer whale calls background mechanisms and consequences
Behaviour, 2015Co-Authors: Volker B Deecke, John K. B. Ford, Filipa I. P. Samarra, Patrick J. O. Miller, Olga A Filatova, Harald YurkAbstract:Cultural Evolution is a powerful process shaping behavioural phenotypes of many species including our own. Killer whales are one of the species with relatively well-studied vocal culture. Pods have distinct dialects comprising a mix of unique and shared call types; calves adopt the call repertoire of their matriline through social learning. We review different aspects of killer whale acoustic communication to provide insights into the Cultural transmission and gene-culture co- Evolution processes that produce the extreme diversity of group and population repertoires. We argue that the Cultural Evolution of killer whale calls is not a random process driven by steady error accumulation alone: temporal change occurs at different speeds in different components of killer whale repertoires, and constraints in call structure and horizontal transmission often degrade the phylogenetic signal. We discuss the implications from bird song and human linguistic studies, and propose several hypotheses of killer whale dialect Evolution.
