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Conformity and eccentricity; driving forces of cultural evolution
Kutsos, Peter ; Tureček, Petr (advisor) ; Šaffa, Gabriel (referee)
When deciding between alternative strategies, animals often have to operate with limited or conflicting information. In these situations, what source of information they prioritize can make a huge difference. Individuals relying on social information (social learners) economize on costs like the risk of eating the wrong food or the energy needed to survey the environment but run the risk of the information they use being out of date or of low quality. On the other hand, those who prioritize individual learning can be more confident in the accuracy of their information, but without any social learning are forced to "reinvent the wheel" every generation. Natural selection has shaped several adaptive heuristic rules which help inform social learning. One category of these rules is frequency-dependent, which means that the probability of behavioural pattern acquisition depends on how common (or rare) they are in a population. This work is a literature review regarding two such rules: conformity and anticonformity and the roles they play in cultural evolution. Keywords: Frequency-dependent transmission, cultural evolution, social learning, conformity bias, anticonformity
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The Cultural Attraction Theory and its Empirical Evidence
Hillerová, Pavlína ; Havlíček, Jan (advisor) ; Horský, Jan (referee)
One of the approaches to study cultural evolution is the cultural attraction theory. This thesis aims to introduce this theory via literature analysis and subject it's empirical backing to a critique. The opening chapter briefly presents the theory and describes the circumstances of it's formation. Next, I outline the specific theoretical concepts (culture as a chain of representations, attractors, transformations). Mainly, the latter are complemented with empirical studies, both supporting and conflicting the respective theory. The last part of the thesis compares cultural attraction theory against dual inheritance theory, which has been contrasted by the aforementioned from the very beginning. Both of these perspectives have it's specifics and can provide an explanation for distinct cultural phenomena. These two theories can complement one another and together constitute an integral theory for cultural evolution study.
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The Cultural Attraction Theory and its Empirical Evidence
Hillerová, Pavlína ; Havlíček, Jan (advisor) ; Horský, Jan (referee)
One of the approaches to study cultural evolution is the cultural attraction theory. This thesis aims to introduce this theory via literature analysis and subject it's empirical backing to a critique. The opening chapter briefly presents the theory and describes the circumstances of it's formation. Next, I outline the specific theoretical concepts (culture as a chain of representations, attractors, transformations). Mainly, the latter are complemented with empirical studies, both supporting and conflicting the respective theory. The last part of the thesis compares cultural attraction theory against dual inheritance theory, which has been contrasted by the aforementioned from the very beginning. Both of these perspectives have it's specifics and can provide an explanation for distinct cultural phenomena. These two theories can complement one another and together constitute an integral theory for cultural evolution study.
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Sympatric cultural divergence and its evolutionary significance
Tureček, Petr ; Havlíček, Jan (advisor) ; Lang, Martin (referee) ; Duda, Pavel (referee)
Interaction of genes and culture is crucial for human evolution. Human ethnic groups and subcultures frequently function as discrete units, and people clearly distinguish between in- group and out-group individuals on a cultural basis. This thesis aims to model the formation of distinct cultural clusters, cultural equivalents of distinct species. Historical development of theories of blending inheritance led to the formation of biometric parallels to Mendelism. Galton-Pearson model of nonparticulate inheritance with constant offspring variance, the most influential model of continuous inheritance ever formulated, was based on measurements of genetically transmitted traits. Ronald Fisher later demonstrated, that this type of inheritance directly stems from polygenic traits with additive genetic variance. Dan Sperber's metaphor of culture space allows integrating any continuous models of position inheritance into computer simulations of the evolution of culture. Most studies today, however, employ particulate models of cultural inheritance. The exceptional works of Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman pioneer the continuous models of cultural inheritance applying Galton-Pearson model to culture. Galton-Pearson inheritance is, unfortunately, not a very good model of cultural transmission. Parental...
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Choice of perfumes and their interaction with body odour
Gwužďová, Markéta ; Havlíček, Jan (advisor) ; Martinec Nováková, Lenka (referee)
The traditional assumption that perfumes are used only for masking of the body odour was doubted by the results of recent researches. In spite of the fact that the biological role of human body odour is very important, it is likely that perfumes are not in conflict with the body odour but there is mutual cooperation. Individuals could choose the scent which goes with their body odour instead of hiding it. In the theoretical part of this thesis I describe a dual inheritance theory, which is a basic concept for our research. We have been concerned with the interaction between biological effects of body odour and social effects of perfumes. Moreover, we have worked on the assumption that the body odour of relatives is similar. We have tested if people are better in their choice of the appropriate perfume for their relatives than for anyone else, in this case partners. Which perfume fits into which body odour was assessed by the independent evaluators of opposite sex because one of the main objectives of chemical signalling is to attract a potential partner. Surprisingly, the results of our research have shown that in the case of couples, the samples of the body odour and perfumes chosen by female partners were slightly better evaluated than the perfumes chosen by men themselves. Moreover, there were...
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