Carel P. van Schaik, Marc Ancrenaz, Reniastoeti Djojoasmoro, Cheryl D. Knott, Helen C. Morrogh-Bernard, Nuzuar Odom Kisar, S. Suci Utami Atmoko, and Maria A. van Noordwijk
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199213276
- eISBN:
- 9780191707568
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199213276.003.0021
- Subject:
- Biology, Animal Biology, Biodiversity / Conservation Biology
Recent comparative work has claimed the presence of socially transmitted behavioral innovations, ranging from tool use to sounds produced during nest building, i.e. culture, among wild orangutans. ...
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Recent comparative work has claimed the presence of socially transmitted behavioral innovations, ranging from tool use to sounds produced during nest building, i.e. culture, among wild orangutans. Much independent information is corroborating this interpretation. Here, after discussing the possible sources of error in this geographic approach, the chapter updates the estimate of the orangutan’s cultural repertoire by presenting the most recent table of locally varying (i.e. non-universal) orangutan behaviors found after exhaustive comparisons of records from eight sites with long-term orangutan field studies. There now is a minimum of between 26 and 35 of such cultural variants, depending on how one assesses the risk that some of them may in fact be hidden universals, missed by some observers or performed too rarely to be reliably recorded. There was little evidence for the alternative models explaining the geographic variation as an outcome of broad reaction norms toward variable ecology or demography, or of genetic differences between populations, both indicating an absence of social learning.Less
Recent comparative work has claimed the presence of socially transmitted behavioral innovations, ranging from tool use to sounds produced during nest building, i.e. culture, among wild orangutans. Much independent information is corroborating this interpretation. Here, after discussing the possible sources of error in this geographic approach, the chapter updates the estimate of the orangutan’s cultural repertoire by presenting the most recent table of locally varying (i.e. non-universal) orangutan behaviors found after exhaustive comparisons of records from eight sites with long-term orangutan field studies. There now is a minimum of between 26 and 35 of such cultural variants, depending on how one assesses the risk that some of them may in fact be hidden universals, missed by some observers or performed too rarely to be reliably recorded. There was little evidence for the alternative models explaining the geographic variation as an outcome of broad reaction norms toward variable ecology or demography, or of genetic differences between populations, both indicating an absence of social learning.
Simon M. Reader, Yfke Hager, and Kevin N. Laland
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199608966
- eISBN:
- 9780191804656
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199608966.003.0009
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
There are consistent individual differences in human intelligence, attributable to a single ‘general intelligence’ factor, g. The evolutionary basis of g and its links to social learning and culture ...
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There are consistent individual differences in human intelligence, attributable to a single ‘general intelligence’ factor, g. The evolutionary basis of g and its links to social learning and culture remain controversial. Conflicting hypotheses regard primate cognition as divided into specialized, independently evolving modules versus a single general process. To assess how processes underlying culture relate to one another and other cognitive capacities, we compiled ecologically relevant cognitive measures from multiple domains, namely reported incidences of behavioural innovation, social learning, tool use, extractive foraging and tactical deception, in 62 primate species. All exhibited strong positive associations in principal component and factor analyses, after statistically controlling for multiple potential confounds. This highly correlated composite of cognitive traits suggests social, technical and ecological abilities have coevolved in primates, indicative of an across-species general intelligence that includes elements of cultural intelligence. Our composite species-level measure of general intelligence, ‘primate gS’, covaried with both brain volume and captive learning performance measures. Our findings question the independence of cognitive traits and do not support ‘massive modularity’ in primate cognition, nor an exclusively social model of primate intelligence. High general intelligence has independently evolved at least four times, with convergent evolution in capuchins, baboons, macaques and great apes.Less
There are consistent individual differences in human intelligence, attributable to a single ‘general intelligence’ factor, g. The evolutionary basis of g and its links to social learning and culture remain controversial. Conflicting hypotheses regard primate cognition as divided into specialized, independently evolving modules versus a single general process. To assess how processes underlying culture relate to one another and other cognitive capacities, we compiled ecologically relevant cognitive measures from multiple domains, namely reported incidences of behavioural innovation, social learning, tool use, extractive foraging and tactical deception, in 62 primate species. All exhibited strong positive associations in principal component and factor analyses, after statistically controlling for multiple potential confounds. This highly correlated composite of cognitive traits suggests social, technical and ecological abilities have coevolved in primates, indicative of an across-species general intelligence that includes elements of cultural intelligence. Our composite species-level measure of general intelligence, ‘primate gS’, covaried with both brain volume and captive learning performance measures. Our findings question the independence of cognitive traits and do not support ‘massive modularity’ in primate cognition, nor an exclusively social model of primate intelligence. High general intelligence has independently evolved at least four times, with convergent evolution in capuchins, baboons, macaques and great apes.
