Social Learning, Social Intelligence and Cognitive Evolution: Experimental and Comparative Studies
| Dates: | 1 December 2015 |
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| Times: | 11:00 - 12:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Faculty of Life Sciences |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Simon Reader |
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Traditionally, social learning – learning from others – has been assumed to involve derived cognitive processes that evolve and develop independently. In this talk, I question the independence of social learning and discuss the evidence for social learning as an adaptive specialisation. I will review experimental work with fish, rodents and humans that demonstrates that current, recent and early life experience all predict the reliance on social information, and thus can potentially explain variation in social learning as a result of experiential effects rather than evolved differences. Comparative work with primates supports the idea that social learning evolves together with other cognitive processes, while work on primate parasite transmission suggests that social learning may also carry specific costs. Increasing evidence suggests that much social learning may be based on ‘ordinary’ processes but with extraordinary consequences.
Speaker
Simon Reader
Organisation: McGill University
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
Michael Smith Lecture Theatre
Michael Smith Building
Manchester
