The CEU Department of Cognitive Science cordially invites you to a talk (as part of its
Departmental Colloquium series)
by
William Hoppitt( Anglia Ruskin University)
Date: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - 18:00-19:30 (NOTE the time change)
Location: CEU Auditorium, Nador street 9-11. (NOTE the venue change)
Within the field of animal social learning, attention is shifting away from the question
of whether non-human primates and other animals are capable of imitation and other types
of social learning, to the question of how important social transmission is in natural
populations. Network based diffusion analysis (NBDA) is a novel statistical method that
has been developed to answer this question. NBDA infers social transmission if the order
and time at which individuals acquire novel behaviour follows a social network. In this
talk, I will explain the logic behind NBDA, and illustrate the use of the method in two
cases. The first is a recent high profile case showing strong evidence for the social
transmission of a novel feeding behaviour (lobtail feeding) among a wild population of
humpback whales. The second is the application of NBDA to the spread of two novel
behaviour patterns through the Sonso chimpanzee community. In the latter case, one
behaviour pattern (moss-sponging) is shown to be socially transmitted, whereas the other
(leaf-sponge re-use) is shown to be primarily asocially learned.
We're looking forward to see you there (Nador street 9)!
Cognitive Science Events at CEU:
http://cognitivescience.ceu.hu/events
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