Developing Distinctively Human Cumulative Culture: Age-Related Changes in Social Information Use

Abstract

This thesis investigated the distinctiveness of human cumulative culture by examining the developmental trajectory of reasoning-based social learning strategies, which have been proposed to be what sets human learning apart from non-humans. Specifically, the studies reported in this thesis were concerned with differentiating cases in which social information use was driven by reasoned understanding and cases which could be explained by implicit adaptive heuristics. This was achieved by looking for age-related changes in children’s reasoning about, and use of, social information. More effective social information use was proposed to reflect learners’ reasoned understanding of its relevance and potential value to themselves. Each study examined a particular cognitive challenge identified as potentially relevant for social information use in the context of real world cases of cumulative culture. Chapter two explored the development of children’s ability to account for others’ conflicting goals in their use of the available social information as a means to achieve their own goal. Chapters three and four investigated children’s ability to seek out appropriate sources of social information. Chapter three looked at children’s recognition of what information they required to solve a problem and who could provide that information. While chapter four examined children’s ability to consider potential informants’ mental states when determining ‘who knows’. Overall, the developmental trajectory indicated relatively late childhood development of effective social information use driven by reasoned understanding. This late development is consistent with proposals suggesting that this may be a cognitive mechanism that is only available to humans. The flexibility afforded by the ability to recognise the value, to oneself, of others’ potential to provide useful and relevant information, on account of their experience or knowledge, appears to offer the significant advantage in social information use that may drive human cumulative culture beyond the capabilities of non-humans.