Cultural learning is cultural

Abstract

This target article presents a theory of human cultural learning.Cultural learning is identified with those instances of social learning in which intersubjectivity or perspective-taking plays a vital role, both in the original learning process and in the resulting cognitive product.Cultural learning manifests itself in three forms during human ontogeny: imitative learning, instructed learning, and collaborative learning -in that order.Evidence is provided that this progression arises from the developmental ordering of the underlying social-cognitive concepts and processes involved.Imitative learning relies on a concept of intentional agent and involves simple perspective-taking.Instructed learning relies on a concept of mental agent and involves alternating/coordinated perspectivetaking (intersubjectivity).Collaborative learning relies on a concept of reflective agent and involves integrated perspective-taking (reflective intersubjectivity).A comparison of normal children, autistic children and wild and enculturated chimpanzees provides further evidence for these correlations between social cognition and cultural learning.Cultural learning is a uniquely human form of social learning that allows for a fidelity of transmission of behaviors and information among conspecifics not possible in other forms of social learning, thereby providing the psychological basis for cultural evolution.

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