Open Lecture — Rates of Evolution and Accumulation of Cultural Variation

Culture can be viewed as an array of learned attitudes or behaviors whose presence in an individual or a society is subject to biased transmission, innovation and random loss. We investigate the rate of evolution of such traits under different models of cultural transmission, and how these models produce different patterns of accumulation of culture, a phenomenon that is often claimed to distinguish human culture from possible analogues to culture in non-human species.

Light refreshments will be served before the lecture at 3:30 p.m.