The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines

Andrew Whiten; Dora Biro; Nicolas Bredeche; Ellen C Garland; Simon Kirby

doi:10.1098/rstb.2020.0306

The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines

Andrew Whiten, Dora Biro, Nicolas Bredeche, Ellen C Garland, Simon Kirby

School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The goal of this themed issue and the associated Royal Society and British Academy joint Discussion Meeting is to advance, and bridge between, two topics and their respective research fields that have burgeoned in recent years, although to date they have often done so quite separately. One field is concerned with collective action, collective intelligence and collective knowledge among groupings of individuals; phenomena in which significantly more is achieved by the collective than is possible for any one individual alone. Their manifestations and mechanisms have been studied across populations of the kinds of non-human animals (henceforth ‘animals’), humans and machines that are the subject matter of this issue.

Original language	English
Journal	Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume	377
Issue number	1843
Early online date	13 Dec 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0306
Publication status	Published - 31 Jan 2022

Keywords

collective cognition
collective memory
social learning
culture
cultural evolution
cumulative culture

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https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0306Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC-BY)

Cite this

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title = "The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines",

abstract = "The goal of this themed issue and the associated Royal Society and British Academy joint Discussion Meeting is to advance, and bridge between, two topics and their respective research fields that have burgeoned in recent years, although to date they have often done so quite separately. One field is concerned with collective action, collective intelligence and collective knowledge among groupings of individuals; phenomena in which significantly more is achieved by the collective than is possible for any one individual alone. Their manifestations and mechanisms have been studied across populations of the kinds of non-human animals (henceforth {\textquoteleft}animals{\textquoteright}), humans and machines that are the subject matter of this issue.",

keywords = "collective cognition, collective memory, social learning, culture, cultural evolution, cumulative culture",

author = "Andrew Whiten and Dora Biro and Nicolas Bredeche and Garland, {Ellen C} and Simon Kirby",

note = "Funding Information: For financial support during the preparation of this manuscript, D.B. thanks the Templeton World Charity Foundation's {\textquoteleft}Diverse Intelligences{\textquoteright} scheme (grant no. TWCF0316), N.B. the Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (grant no. ANR-18-CE33-0006), E.C.G. the Royal Society (Royal Society University Research Fellowship (F160081), and S.K. the ESRC (ES/R011869/1). Acknowledgements ",

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AU - Whiten, Andrew

AU - Biro, Dora

AU - Bredeche, Nicolas

AU - Garland, Ellen C

AU - Kirby, Simon

N1 - Funding Information: For financial support during the preparation of this manuscript, D.B. thanks the Templeton World Charity Foundation's ‘Diverse Intelligences’ scheme (grant no. TWCF0316), N.B. the Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (grant no. ANR-18-CE33-0006), E.C.G. the Royal Society (Royal Society University Research Fellowship (F160081), and S.K. the ESRC (ES/R011869/1). Acknowledgements

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KW - collective memory

KW - social learning

KW - culture

KW - cultural evolution

KW - cumulative culture

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SN - 0962-8436

IS - 1843

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The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines

Abstract

Keywords

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