Animal culture is real but needs to be clearly defined.
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Animals↗
Biomedical subjects
Andrew Whiten
Publications and source records attributed to Andrew Whiten.
Neural mechanisms of imitation and 'mirror neuron' functioning in autistic spectrum disorder.
An association between autistic spectrum disorder and imitative impairment might result from dysfunction in mirror neurons (MNs) that serve to relate observed actions to motor codings. To explore this hypothesis, we employed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) protocol previously used to identify the neural substrate of imitation, and human MN function, to compare 16 adolescent males of normal intelligence with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and age, sex and IQ matched controls. In the control group, in accord with previous findings, we identified activity attributable to MNs in areas of the right parietal lobe. Activity in this area was less extensive in the ASD group and was absent during non-imitative action execution. Broca's area was minimally active during imitation in controls. Differential patterns of activity during imitation and action observation in ASD and controls were most evident in an area at the right temporo-parietal junction also associated with a 'theory of mind' (ToM) function. ASD participants also failed to show modulation of left amygdala activity during imitation that was evident in the controls. This may have implications for understanding the imitation of emotional stimuli in ASD. Overall, we suggest that ASD is associated with altered patterns of brain activity during imitation, which could stem from poor integration between areas serving visual, motor, proprioceptive and emotional functions. Such poor integration is likely to adversely affect the development of ToM through imitation as well as other aspects of social cognitive function in ASD.
Adolescent↗
The second inheritance system of chimpanzees and humans.
Half a century of dedicated field research has brought us from ignorance of our closest relatives to the discovery that chimpanzee communities resemble human cultures in possessing suites of local traditions that uniquely identify them. The collaborative effort required to establish this picture parallels the one set up to sequence the chimpanzee genome, and has revealed a complex social inheritance system that complements the genetic picture we are now developing.
Animals↗
Conformity to cultural norms of tool use in chimpanzees.
Rich circumstantial evidence suggests that the extensive behavioural diversity recorded in wild great apes reflects a complexity of cultural variation unmatched by species other than our own. However, the capacity for cultural transmission assumed by this interpretation has remained difficult to test rigorously in the field, where the scope for controlled experimentation is limited. Here we show that experimentally introduced technologies will spread within different ape communities. Unobserved by group mates, we first trained a high-ranking female from each of two groups of captive chimpanzees to adopt one of two different tool-use techniques for obtaining food from the same 'Pan-pipe' apparatus, then re-introduced each female to her respective group. All but two of 32 chimpanzees mastered the new technique under the influence of their local expert, whereas none did so in a third population lacking an expert. Most chimpanzees adopted the method seeded in their group, and these traditions continued to diverge over time. A subset of chimpanzees that discovered the alternative method nevertheless went on to match the predominant approach of their companions, showing a conformity bias that is regarded as a hallmark of human culture.
Aging↗
An fMRI study of joint attention experience.
Although much is now known about eye movement detection, little is known about the higher cognitive processes involved in joint attention. We developed video stimuli which when watched, engender an experience of joint attention in the observer. This allowed us to compare an experience of joint attention to nonjoint attention within an fMRI scanning environment. Joint attention was associated with activity in the ventromedial frontal cortex, the left superior frontal gyrus (BA10), cingulate cortex, and caudate nuclei. The ventromedial frontal cortex has been consistently shown to be activated during mental state attribution tasks. BA10 may serve a cognitive integration function, which in this case seems to utilize a perception-action matching process. The activation we identified in BA10 overlaps with a location of increased grey matter density that we recently found to be associated with autistic spectrum disorder. This study therefore constitutes evidence that the neural substrate of joint attention also serves a mentalizing function. The developmental failure of this substrate in the left anterior frontal lobe may be important in the etiology of autistic spectrum disorder.
Adolescent↗
Structural white matter deficits in high-functioning individuals with autistic spectrum disorder: a voxel-based investigation.
A number of imaging and neuropathological studies have reported structural abnormalities in white matter areas such as the corpus callosum in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Differences in both global brain volume and the size of specific neural structures have been reported. In order to expand these previously reported findings and to describe more precisely the nature of such structural changes, we performed a voxel-based morphometric whole brain analysis, using a group-specific template, in male adolescents with ASD. Fifteen individuals with normal intelligence and ASD, and a group of 16 controls, matched for age, sex, and IQ, were investigated. High-resolution T1-weighted 3D data sets were acquired and analysed. Local white matter volume deficits were found in the corpus callosum, particularly in the anterior splenium and isthmus, and right hemisphere. White matter volume deficits were also found in the left middle temporal, right middle frontal, and left superior frontal gyri. No significant areas of increased white matter volume were found. Our findings support the hypothesis that reduced white matter volume in the corpus callosum and right hemisphere may play a role in the pathophysiology of ASD.
Adolescent↗
Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens).
This study explored whether the tendency of chimpanzees and children to use emulation or imitation to solve a tool-using task was a response to the availability of causal information. Young wild-born chimpanzees from an African sanctuary and 3- to 4-year-old children observed a human demonstrator use a tool to retrieve a reward from a puzzle-box. The demonstration involved both causally relevant and irrelevant actions, and the box was presented in each of two conditions: opaque and clear. In the opaque condition, causal information about the effect of the tool inside the box was not available, and hence it was impossible to differentiate between the relevant and irrelevant parts of the demonstration. However, in the clear condition causal information was available, and subjects could potentially determine which actions were necessary. When chimpanzees were presented with the opaque box, they reproduced both the relevant and irrelevant actions, thus imitating the overall structure of the task. When the box was presented in the clear condition they instead ignored the irrelevant actions in favour of a more efficient, emulative technique. These results suggest that emulation is the favoured strategy of chimpanzees when sufficient causal information is available. However, if such information is not available, chimpanzees are prone to employ a more comprehensive copy of an observed action. In contrast to the chimpanzees, children employed imitation to solve the task in both conditions, at the expense of efficiency. We suggest that the difference in performance of chimpanzees and children may be due to a greater susceptibility of children to cultural conventions, perhaps combined with a differential focus on the results, actions and goals of the demonstrator.
Animals↗
Use of leaves to inspect ectoparasites in wild chimpanzees: a third cultural variant?
We report 26 cases of using leaves as tools with which wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in the Sonso community, Budongo Forest, Uganda, appeared to inspect objects removed during grooming. Careful removal of potential ectoparasites and delicate lip or manual placement on leaves followed by intense visual examination characterised this behaviour. It appears to be done to judge whether either ingestion or discarding is most appropriate, the former occurring in most cases. This behaviour may represent a third variant of ectoparasite handling, different from those described at Tai and Gombe, yet sharing features with the latter. These two East African techniques may thus have evolved from leaf grooming.
Animals↗
A voxel-based investigation of brain structure in male adolescents with autistic spectrum disorder.
Autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) has been associated with abnormal neuroanatomy in many imaging and neuropathological studies. Both global brain volume differences and differences in the size of specific neural structures have been reported. Here, we report a voxel-based morphometric whole brain analysis, using a group specific template, on 16 individuals of normal intelligence with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), and a group of 16 age-, sex- and IQ-matched controls. Total grey matter volume was increased in the ASD group relative to the control group, with local volume increases in the right fusiform gyrus, the right temporo-occipital region and the left frontal pole extending to the medial frontal cortex. A local decrease in grey matter volume was found in the right thalamus. A decrease in global white matter volume in the ASD group did not reach significance. We found the increase in grey matter volume in ASD subjects was greatest in those areas recognised for their role in social cognition, particularly face recognition (right fusiform gyrus), mental state attribution: 'theory of mind' (anterior cingulate and superior temporal sulcus) and perception of eye gaze (superior temporal gyrus). The picture as a whole may reflect an abnormally functioning social cognitive neural network. We suggest that increased grey matter volume may play a pivotal role in the aetiology of the autistic syndrome.
Adolescent↗
A systematic review of action imitation in autistic spectrum disorder.
Imitative deficits have been associated with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) for many years, most recently through more robust methodologies. A fresh, systematic review of the significance, characteristics, and underlying mechanism of the association is therefore warranted. From 121 candidates, we focused on 21 well-controlled studies involving 281 cases of ASD. Overall, children with ASD performed worse on imitative tasks (Combined Logit p value < .00005). The emerging picture is of delayed development in imitation, implicating a deficit in mapping neural codings for actions between sensory and motor modalities, rather than in motivation or executive function. We hypothesise that ASD is characterised by abnormal development of these mappings. such that they are biased towards object-oriented tasks at the expense of those required for action imitation per se.
Adolescent↗
Perspective: is human cultural evolution Darwinian? Evidence reviewed from the perspective of the Origin of Species.
The claim that human culture evolves through the differential adoption of cultural variants, in a manner analogous to the evolution of biological species, has been greeted with much resistance and confusion. Here we demonstrate that as compelling a case can now be made that cultural evolution has key Darwinian properties, as Darwin himself presented for biological evolution in The Origin of Species. Culture is shown to exhibit variation, competition, inheritance, and the accumulation of successive cultural modifications over time. Adaptation, convergence, and the loss or change of function can also be identified in culture. Just as Darwin knew nothing of genes or particulate inheritance, a case for Darwinian cultural evolution can be made irrespective of whether unitary cultural replicators exist or whether cultural transmission mechanisms are well understood.
Adaptation, Biological↗
How do apes ape?
In the wake of telling critiques of the foundations on which earlier conclusions were based, the last 15 years have witnessed a renaissance in the study of social learning in apes. As a result, we are able to review 31 experimental studies from this period in which social learning in chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans has been investigated. The principal question framed at the beginning of this era, Do apes ape? has been answered in the affirmative, at least in certain conditions. The more interesting question now is, thus, How do apes ape? Answering this question has engendered richer taxonomies of the range of social-learning processes at work and new methodologies to uncover them. Together, these studies suggest that apes ape by employing a portfolio of alternative social-learning processes in flexibly adaptive ways, in conjunction with nonsocial learning. We conclude by sketching the kind of decision tree that appears to underlie the deployment of these alternatives.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Testing for social learning and imitation in common marmosets, Callithrix jacchus, using an artificial fruit.
We tested for social learning and imitation in common marmosets using an artificial foraging task and trained conspecific demonstrators. We trained a demonstrator marmoset to open an artificial fruit, providing a full demonstration of the task to be learned. Another marmoset provided a partial demonstration, controlling for stimulus enhancement effects, by eating food from the outside of the apparatus. We thus compared three observer groups, each consisting of four animals: those that received the full demonstration, those that received the partial demonstration, and a control group that saw no demonstration prior to testing. Although none of the observer marmosets succeeded in opening the artificial fruit during the test periods, there were clear effects of demonstration type. Those that saw the full demonstration manipulated the apparatus more overall, whereas those from the control group manipulated it the least of the three groups. Those from the full-demonstration group also contacted the particular parts of the artificial fruit that they had seen touched (localised stimulus enhancement) to a greater extent than the other two groups. There was also an interaction between the number of hand and mouth touches made to the artificial fruit for the full- and partial-demonstration groups. Whether or not these data represent evidence for imitation is discussed. We also propose that the clear differences between the groups suggest that social learning mechanisms provide real benefits to these animals in terms of developing novel food-processing skills analogous to the one presented here.
Animals↗
Social learning by orangutans (Pongo abelii and Pongo pygmaeus) in a simulated food-processing task.
Increasing evidence for behavioral differences between populations of primates has created a resurgence of interest in examining mechanisms of information transfer between individuals. The authors examined the social transmission of information in 15 captive orangutans (Pongo abelii and Pongo pygmaeus) using a simulated food-processing task. Experimental subjects were shown 1 of 2 methods for removing a suite of defenses on an "artificial fruit." Control subjects were given no prior exposure before interacting with the fruit. Observing a model provided a functional advantage in the task, as significantly more experimental than control subjects opened the fruit. Within the experimental groups, the authors found a trend toward differences in the actual behaviors used to remove 1 of the defenses. Results support observations from the wild implying horizontal transfer of information in orangutans and show that a number of social learning processes are likely to be involved in the transfer of knowledge in this species.
Animal Communication↗
Evolutionary perspectives on imitation: is a comparative psychology of social learning possible?
Studies of imitation in animals have become numerous in recent times, but do they contribute to a comparative psychology of social learning? We review this burgeoning field to identify the problems and prospects for such a goal. Difficulties of two main kinds are identified. First, researchers have tackled questions about social learning from at least three very different theoretical perspectives, the "phylogenetic", "animal model", and "adaptational". We examine the conflicts between them and consider the scope for integration. A second difficulty arises in the methodological approaches used in the discipline. In relation to one of these - survey reviews of published studies - we tabulate and compare the contrasting conclusions of nine articles that together review 36 studies. The basis for authors' disagreements, including the matters of perceptual opacity, novelty, sequential structure, and goal representation, are examined. In relation to the other key method, comparative experimentation, we identify 12 studies that have explicitly compared species' imitative ability on similar tasks. We examine the principal problems of comparing like with like in these studies and consider solutions, the most powerful of which we propose to be the use of a systematic range of task designs, rather than any single "gold standard" task.
Animals↗