Science· 2012Q1
Identification of the Social and Cognitive Processes Underlying Human Cumulative Culture
- 534citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2012year
Short summary
Children, unlike capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees, demonstrated cumulative culture in a puzzlebox task, with success strongly linked to teaching via verbal instruction, imitation, and prosociality.
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Key points
- Children, but not capuchin monkeys or chimpanzees, achieved higher-level solutions in a sequential problem-solving puzzlebox task.
- Children's success in cumulative culture was strongly associated with verbal instruction, imitation, and prosociality.
- These sociocognitive processes were observed only in children and covaried with their performance on the task.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
The remarkable ecological and demographic success of humanity is largely attributed to our capacity for cumulative culture, with knowledge and technology accumulating over time, yet the social and cognitive capabilities that have enabled cumulative culture remain unclear. In a comparative study of sequential problem solving, we provided groups of capuchin monkeys, chimpanzees, and children with an experimental puzzlebox that could be solved in three stages to retrieve rewards of increasing desirability. The success of the children, but not of the chimpanzees or capuchins, in reaching higher-level solutions was strongly associated with a package of sociocognitive processes-including teaching through verbal instruction, imitation, and prosociality-that were observed only in the children and covaried with performance.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Science, 2012 · DOI ↗
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Field: Cultural Studies
Cultural StudiesSocial Sciences