Adaptive Social Learning Strategies in Temporally and Spatially Varying Environments

Long before the origins of agriculture human ancestors had expanded across the globe into an immense variety of environments, from Australian deserts to Siberian tundra. Survival in these environments did not principally depend on genetic adaptations, but instead on evolved learning strategies that permitted the assembly of locally adaptive behavioral repertoires. To develop hypotheses about these learning strategies, we have modeled the evolution of learning strategies to assess what conditions and constraints favor which kinds of strategies. To build on prior work, we focus on clarifying how spatial variability, temporal variability, and the number of cultural traits influence the evolution of four types of strategies: (1) individual learning, (2) unbiased social learning, (3) payoff-biased social learning, and (4) conformist transmission. Using a combination of analytic and simulation methods, we show that spatial—but not temporal—variation strongly favors the Hum Nat (2012) 23:386–418 DOI 10.1007/s12110-012-9151-y Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12110-012-9151-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. W. Nakahashi (*) : J. Y. Wakano Meiji Institute for Advanced Study of Mathematical Sciences, Meiji University, 1-1-1 Higashimita, Tamaku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa 214-8571, Japan e-mail: [email protected] J. Y. Wakano e-mail: [email protected] J. Henrich Departments of Psychology and Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada e-mail: [email protected] Author's personal copy