Article
Anthropology
Alberto Acerbi
Summary: The research found that negative content is more likely to be transmitted in traditional transmission chain experiments and more likely to be shared online. Threat-related information is successful in transmission chain experiments but not in sharing, while information eliciting disgust has no advantage in either case.
HUMAN NATURE-AN INTERDISCIPLINARY BIOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Mitsuhiko Ota, Aitor San Jose, Kenny Smith
Summary: The idea that natural language is shaped by biases in learning is crucial for understanding human language structure, but it does not always hold true that typological generalizations correspond to ease of acquisition. Research suggests that words with sound repetitions are more likely to be acquired, challenging the belief that languages tend to avoid such repetitions. Culture evolution may impact how learning biases influence language design, with biases being more prominent when there is higher learning pressure on the lexicon during transmission.
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Vibhash Kumar, Ria Dudani, K. Latha
Summary: This study examines the relationship between behavioral biases and the Big Five Personality traits, finding significant causal relationships between extraversion, openness to experience, and the three biases.
CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Hao Tong, Amol N. Nankar, Jintao Liu, Velichka Todorova, Daniela Ganeva, Stanislava Grozeva, Ivanka Tringovska, Gancho Pasev, Vesela Radeva-Ivanova, Tsanko Gechev, Dimitrina Kostova, Zoran Nikoloski
Summary: Genomic selection using genetic markers and machine learning methods can predict morphological and color-related traits of Solanaceous fruits, aiding in shortening breeding cycles and improving efficiency in selecting high-performance lines.
HORTICULTURE RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Anthropology
L. S. Premo
Summary: The study investigates how population size affects the coefficient of variation (CV) of a continuous cultural trait under different cultural transmission mechanisms. Results show that the CV of a continuous cultural trait is determined by its cultural equivalent N and effective population size (Ne) as well as the strength of cultural selection. Different combinations of N and cultural transmission can yield identical CV values.
JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL METHOD AND THEORY
(2021)
Article
Humanities, Multidisciplinary
Salva Duran-Nebreda, Michael J. O'Brien, R. Alexander Bentley, Sergi Valverde
Summary: This study explores the relationship between diversity and innovation in cultural evolution, finding that when a cultural domain expands to the point of exceeding the supply of experts, diversity decreases and information redundancy increases, with imitation replacing invention. The model predictions are validated through case studies, revealing the dynamics of boom and bust in innovation.
HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
David Hirshleifer, Joshua B. Plotkin
Summary: Biased information about others' payoffs can drive innovation, risk taking, and investment booms. Observers tend to focus more on large successes than small ones. This cultural phenomenon may lead to companies becoming overly optimistic, resulting in irrational booms in adoption.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Gen Yoshida, Ryuusei Doi, Ryusei Wada, Toko Tanikawa, Yasuhiro Hirano
Summary: The purpose of this study was to investigate the shedding process and morphological traits of root litter from Chamaecyparis obtusa. Researchers developed a method for direct sampling of root litter in the field and collected data for 12 months. They found that the monthly amount of root litter varied significantly, but the morphological traits did not differ significantly among months.
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
(2022)
Article
History & Philosophy Of Science
Mathieu Charbonneau, Pierrick Bourrat
Summary: The fidelity of cultural transmission is relative to the granularity at which one approaches cultural variation, leading to a multiplicity of measures of fidelity for the same event or mechanism of cultural transmission. This poses a challenge to the explanatory power of fidelity and calls into question whether there is an objective truth about the faithfulness of cultural transmission.
Article
Engineering, Multidisciplinary
Qingsong Ai, Baocheng Zhang, Yunbin Yuan, Tianhe Xu, Yongchang Chen, Bingfeng Tan
Summary: This study investigates the impact of pseudorange bias inconsistencies on satellite clock offset estimation in different receiver networks using observations from 140 GNSS service stations. The results show that the biases vary among different satellites and receiver types, but they are statistically stable. Considering the bias inconsistencies significantly improves the accuracy of clock offset estimation and enhances the convergence and positioning performance.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Keely Paler, Adrian Monks, Richard A. B. Leschen, Darren F. Ward
Summary: Research has shown that invertebrate populations in alpine environments are highly sensitive to climate change, with functional traits potentially providing a more consistent and sensitive response to environmental changes compared to species diversity metrics. Natural variation between years and sites has a stronger influence on beetle communities than temperature and nutrient treatments, indicating that landscape-level variations play a significant role in structuring these communities.
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Helena Miton, Simon DeDeo
Summary: This study presents a domain-general model of 'tacit teaching', drawn from statistical physics, to explain the transmission and evolution of tacit knowledge in cultural practices. The model predicts key features of the teaching process and the cultural evolution of tacit knowledge.
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INTERFACE
(2022)
Article
Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications
Katherine O'Toole, Emoke-Agnes Horvat
Summary: The ubiquity of digital music consumption has allowed for large-scale analysis of stylistic change in modern music. By examining the relationship between established characteristics of genres and styles and the introduction of novel ideas, we can gain insights into cultural evolution. Through studying musical artifacts and their novelty, as well as the relationship between novelty and commercial success, we can observe changes in musical content and understand how they impact audience reception.
Article
Marine & Freshwater Biology
Barbhara Isabella Oenning Ribeiro, Louizi de Souza Magalhaes Braghin, Fernando Miranda Lansac-Toha, Francieli Fatima Bomfim, Bia A. Almeida, Claudia Costa Bonecker, Fabio Amodeo Lansac-Toha
Summary: This study examined the effects of tributaries on environmental heterogeneity and zooplankton beta diversity in the Upper Parana River. The results showed that total beta diversity was positively correlated with environmental heterogeneity, while turnover and nestedness were influenced by specific environmental variables and geographic distance.
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Israel Guerrero-Cozar, Eduardo Jimenez-Fernandez, Concha Berbel, Elena Espinosa, Manuel Gonzalo Claros, Ricardo Zerolo, Manuel Manchado
Summary: This study demonstrates that genetic breeding programs can be successfully implemented in Senegalese sole to optimize production, with high heritabilities and correlations. Shape quality is crucial in flatfish aquaculture, particularly in the case of the highly elliptic Senegalese sole with body morphology that slightly changes with age and size.
Article
Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
R. Alexander Bentley, Joshua Borycz, Simon Carrignon, Damian J. Ruck, Michael J. O'Brien
Summary: The explosion of online knowledge has made knowledge difficult to find, with search results biased towards recent, popular, and prestigious sources. To rediscover lost scientific ideas, the theory suggests that revolutionary ideas drive new paradigms.
Article
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Matthew J. Silk, Simon Carrignon, R. Alexander Bentley, Nina H. Fefferman
Summary: The study highlights the importance of focusing on individual awareness of risk from physical contacts in reducing disease spread, while also indicating that the impact of information from social communication networks is limited when not closely aligned with physical contacts.
Article
Psychology, Social
Garriy Shteynberg, Jacob B. Hirsh, Jon Garthoff, R. Alexander Bentley
Summary: The research emphasizes the important distinction between collective agency and collective identity, noting that collective identity is rooted in the unique characteristics of group members, while collective agency involves a shared subjectivity directed towards an object. They differ in terms of their mental representations, neurocognitive underpinnings, conditions of emergence, mechanisms of social convergence, and functional consequences.
PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW
(2022)
Article
Anthropology
Alberto Acerbi
Summary: The research found that negative content is more likely to be transmitted in traditional transmission chain experiments and more likely to be shared online. Threat-related information is successful in transmission chain experiments but not in sharing, while information eliciting disgust has no advantage in either case.
HUMAN NATURE-AN INTERDISCIPLINARY BIOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE
(2022)
Article
Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications
Joshua Borycz, Benjamin D. Horne, R. Alexander Bentley
Summary: Evolutionary studies of cultural complexity have found that group members tend to selectively choose the best information, resulting in diffusion of certain innovations while others are left behind. In the evolution of scientific paradigms, seminal papers are highly influential in citation networks but become peripheral to the evolution of topics in subsequent publications.
ADVANCES IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS
(2022)
Article
Health Care Sciences & Services
Alexander J. Pritchard, Matthew J. Silk, Simon Carrignon, R. Alexander Bentley, Nina H. Fefferman
Summary: Reporting on disease outbreaks plays a crucial role in influencing the spread of epidemics and individual decisions. The content and scale of the reports have impacts on behavior. Reporting total active and new cases at the population level is the most effective approach.
JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY
(2022)
Article
Anthropology
R. Alexander Bentley
Summary: This article reviews the key developments in prehistoric kinship, from early hominin evolution to contemporary times, and how these changes have affected social organization and cultural inheritance.
ANNUAL REVIEW OF ANTHROPOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Alberto Acerbi, John Burns, Unal Cabuk, Jakub Kryczka, Bethany Trapp, John Joseph Valletta, Alex Mesoudi
Summary: We analyzed over 2 million tweets related to the nature documentary "Our Planet" and found that the sentiment was largely negative at the time of release, primarily due to a highly retweeted negative tweet. Species mentioned in the documentary were associated with more negative sentiment compared to control species. Our results highlight the challenge of evoking positive sentiment towards environmental issues on social media.
CONSERVATION BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
R. Alexander Bentley, Benjamin Horne, Joshua Borycz, Simon Carrignon, Garriy Shteynberg, Blai Vidiella, Sergi Valverde, Michael J. O'Brien
Summary: Diversity of expertise in cultural evolution is useful but can lead to divisiveness when social conformity overrides transparency. Social media today prioritizes recent and popular content, allowing misinformation to spread, isolating true subject experts and creating social division. A cultural-evolutionary framework can help define safe limits of social conformity and information overload by identifying online spaces with high popularity bias and low information transparency.
Article
Physics, Multidisciplinary
Rickard Nyman, Paul Ormerod, R. Alexander Bentley
Summary: The literature on the fall of civilizations explores various explanations for their demise, ranging from general causes like drought and warfare to specific ones like intergroup competition and collapse of trade networks. This study focuses on ancient civilizations and proposes a model that replicates the rise and fall of civilizations through the processes of innovation. The results show that civilizations become increasingly vulnerable to even small increases in the tendency to copy locally, leading to an extreme hierarchy of success among different agents.
Article
Anthropology
Michael J. O'Brien, Sergi Valverde, Salva Duran-Nebreda, Blai Vidiella, R. Alexander Bentley
Summary: The theory of punctuated equilibrium, developed over 50 years ago, explains the long-term appearance and disappearance of species in the fossil record. While not directly applicable to biocultural evolution, the revised form of the theory can incorporate recent empirical research and large databases, making it valuable in the field of evolutionary anthropology.
EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Humanities, Multidisciplinary
Salva Duran-Nebreda, Michael J. O'Brien, R. Alexander Bentley, Sergi Valverde
Summary: This study explores the relationship between diversity and innovation in cultural evolution, finding that when a cultural domain expands to the point of exceeding the supply of experts, diversity decreases and information redundancy increases, with imitation replacing invention. The model predictions are validated through case studies, revealing the dynamics of boom and bust in innovation.
HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Simon Carrignon, R. Alexander Bentley, Matthew Silk, Nina H. Fefferman
Summary: The global pandemic of COVID-19 has shown that individuals have varied responses to infection risks and social learning. This study demonstrates the influence of individual observation and social learning on behavior and epidemiological dynamics. Simulation results are consistent with real-world data and observations, suggesting that the reliance on different types of learning can impact the course of an outbreak and should be considered in policy-based interventions.
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Alexander J. Pritchard, Matthew J. Silk, Simon Carrignon, R. Alexander Bentley, Nina H. Fefferman
Summary: Reporting epidemiological data requires coordinated action, with delays impacting direct interventions. Public concern can indirectly mitigate disease spread by promoting adherence to protective behaviors. The study emphasizes the interplay between testing accuracy and reporting timeliness in complex social systems.
INFECTIOUS DISEASE MODELLING
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Christian Houle, Damian J. Ruck, R. Alexander Bentley, Sergey Gavrilets
Summary: Economic, social, and political inequality contribute to violent conflicts within societies. A mathematical model shows that growing inequality leads to the breakdown of cooperation between initially cooperative factions. Mechanisms such as rule of law, allegiance to the state or dominant faction, and anti-conformity can delay this process.
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INTERFACE
(2022)
