Learning in the Cultural Process

Edwin L. Hutchins · Brian L. Hazlehurst

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Language and cultural evolution Neural Networks and Applications Evolutionary Algorithms and Applications

Abstract

This paper reports a set of computer simulations that demonstrate a form of adaptation that we believe to be characteristic of human intelligence. One of the central problems faced by biological and artificial systems is the development and maintenance of coordination between structure inside the system and structure outside the system. That is, the production of useful behavior requires internal structures that respond in appropriate ways to structure in the environment. The processes that give rise to this coordination are generally considered adaptive. Biological evolution, individual learning, and cultural evolution can all be viewed as ways to discover and save solutions to frequently encountered problems---they are processes that generate coordination between internal and external structure. Creatures that can learn are likely to have a greater range of responses which, as Hinton and Nowlan (1987) have shown, can lead to learning actually guiding evolution. Hinton and Nowlan imagine a population of creatures, in which the behavior of each individual is specified by some number N of alleles. The creatures inhabit a world in which there is a fitness spike associated with only one particular pattern of those N alleles. If all of the alleles are genetically fixed, the chances of any individual finding the fitness spike is low and no search strategy beats random search. Thus, for creatures in which behavior is entirely genetically determined, the process of * A version of this paper appeared in D. Farmer, C. Langton, S. Rasmussen, & C. Taylor (Eds.), Artificial Life II (1991). Addison-Wesley. 2 discovering and saving good solutions is blind and relatively slow. 1 Now suppose that rather than having all the alleles' settings hardwired, some can be learned (by guessing...

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References

1986Culture and the Evolutionary Process 1981Cultural transmission and evolution: a quantitative approach.2006How to invent a lexicon: the development of shared symbols in interaction 1990Evolution, Learning, and Culture: Computational Metaphors for Adaptive Algorithms.1991Four analogies between biological and cultural/linguistic evolution

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