Related papers: Divergent Cumulative Cultural Evolution
Evolution by natural selection can be seen an algorithm for generating creative solutions to difficult problems. More precisely, evolution by natural selection is a class of algorithms that share a set of properties. The question we address…
We show that evolution in a population of adaptive agents, repeatedly competing for a limited resource, can come to an abrupt halt. This transition from evolutionary to non-evolutionary behavior arises as the global resource level is…
In this paper three computational models for the study of the evolution of cooperation under cultural propagation are studied: Kin Selection, Direct Reciprocity and Indirect Reciprocity. Two analyzes are reported, one comparing their…
An evolving population, in which individual members (`agents') adapt their behaviour according to past experience, is of central importance to many disciplines. Because of their limited knowledge and capabilities, agents are forced to make…
Many life-history traits, like the age at maturity or adult longevity, are important determinants of the generation time. For instance, semelparous species whose adults reproduce once and die have shorter generation times than iteroparous…
Human culture is uniquely cumulative and open-ended. Using a computational model of cultural evolution in which neural network based agents evolve ideas for actions through invention and imitation, we tested the hypothesis that this is due…
Cancer progression involves the sequential accumulation of genetic alterations that cumulatively shape the tumour phenotype. In prostate cancer, tumours can follow divergent evolutionary trajectories that lead to distinct subtypes, but the…
Every now and then the cultural paradigm of a society changes. Human history can be regarded as a sequence of long periods of cultural stasis punctuated by paradigm shifts that transform culture upside-down over the turn of a few…
The dynamical evolution of many economic, sociological, biological and physical systems tends to be dominated by a relatively small number of unexpected, large changes (`extreme events'). We study the large, internal changes produced in a…
Cumulative cultural evolution is what made humanity to thrive in various ecological and demographic environments. Solutions to the tasks that humans needed to solve could be mapped onto a task space which could take the form of either…
We consider a system of two competing populations in two-dimensional heterogeneous environments. The populations are assumed to move horizontally and vertically with different probabilities, but are otherwise identical. We regard these…
Prevalence of cooperation within groups of selfish individuals is puzzling in that it contradicts with the basic premise of natural selection. Favoring players with higher fitness, the latter is key for understanding the challenges faced by…
Referential games offer a grounded learning environment for neural agents which accounts for the fact that language is functionally used to communicate. However, they do not take into account a second constraint considered to be fundamental…
Human societies around the world interact with each other by developing and maintaining social norms, and it is critically important to understand how such norms emerge and change. In this work, we define an evolutionary game-theoretic…
Cultural values vary significantly around the world. Despite a large heterogeneity, similarities across national cultures are present. This paper studies cross-country culture heterogeneity via the joint inference of country-specific copula…
Many complex adaptive systems contain a large diversity of specialized components. The specialization at the level of the microscopic degrees of freedom, and diversity at the level of the system as a whole are phenomena that appear during…
Disgust is a basic emotion that serves to avoid contaminants, and is central to the behavioural immune system. While disgust-motivated avoidance occurs in bonobos and chimpanzees, humans show uniquely high levels of contamination…
In recent years, there has been growing interest in studying evolutionary games with environmental feedback. Previous studies exclusively focus on two-player games. However, extension to multi-player game is needed to study problems such as…
This paper proposes that the distinctively human capacity for cumulative, adaptive, open-ended cultural evolution came about through two temporally-distinct cognitive transitions. First, the origin of Homo-specific culture over two MYA was…
Extensive cooperation among biologically unrelated individuals is uniquely human and much current research attempts to explain this fact. We draw upon social, cultural, and psychological aspects of human uniqueness to present an integrated…