Cognitive Capacities Underlying Cumulative Culture: A Developmental Approach

Abstract

In this thesis I examine cognitive capacities which may explain human propensity for cumulative culture, and its near absence in nonhumans. Although the potential importance of human-unique cognition has been discussed in the literature, the particular capacities responsible remain unknown. Adults show cumulative culture, therefore any capacities implicated are expected to develop during childhood. I thus take a developmental approach (in children aged 3-10): across four experimental studies, I investigate whether children’s use of social information, and thus potential for cumulative culture, changes in line with the development of human-unique cognitive capacities. The first research strand utilised a novel experimental approach to examine the cognitive constraints on utilising social information in ecologically valid contexts. The results highlighted the importance of both task context and cognitive ability for cumulative culture. We thus propose that human cognition may enable our species to accumulate culture across a broader range of contexts than nonhumans, including utilising information from multiple social models. Furthermore, based on the contexts presented, we found that general cognitive abilities, such as working memory (neglected in much of the literature, in favour of social propensities), may be important for human cumulative culture. A second strand of the thesis focused on human-unique social cognitive abilities, examining whether these enable cumulative culture through the selective copying of more effective individuals/trait variants. Specifically, we hypothesised that the development of an explicit understanding of others’ minds may coincide with a shift in the flexibility of social learning strategies – from nonhuman-like, associative strategies to adult-like, understanding-based strategies. However, we did not identify such a shift in the age range tested (3-8 years). In conclusion, the cognitive capacities underlying human cumulative culture were not definitively determined, yet this thesis has furthered understanding of the general and social cognitive capacities which may be implicated.