REMINDER:

The CEU Department of Cognitive Science cordially invites you to its talk by

Ludwig Huber (University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna)

Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - 17:00-18:30

Host: Natalie Sebanz, Head of Department

Location: Department of Cognitive Science, CEU, Oktober 6 street 7, room 101.

How specific is human cultural learning?

How specific is human cultural learning? To answer this question we need to know if nonhuman

animals learn culturally and if so, how. This requires us looking over the fence. Since

I consider cultural learning being a subcategory of social learning, I will review several

studies on social learning in non-human animals. Interestingly, these studies share an

irritating feature, they don’t fit (easily) into the current (dominant) theories of social learning

research. Red-footed tortoises show clear evidence of learning a difficult spatial problem

(detour task) by observing a conspecific model despite the fact that they are solitary. Archer

fish, lizards and common marmosets exhibit high fidelity copying of movement patterns of a

conspecific model, thereby solving the correspondence problem of imitation (transforming

visual information into matching motor acts). Dogs seem able to perform — at least in

ostensive-communicative contexts — selective imitation; they copy a conspecific’ actions

more often when those actions are the efficient solution to a problem than when they are not.

However, the ability to interpret the ‘rational’ dimension of others actions has been

considered a hallmark of human cultural learning. Together these data challenge some

theories of social learning by suggesting that several core components of human cultural

learning, such as high copying fidelity, intentional inhibition and selectivity, are shared by

many species. What remains human-specific in social learning needs to be specified.

See more at:

We are looking forward to see you there (Oktober 6 street 7)!