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Towards a general model of cultural inheritance
Hillerová, Pavlína ; Tureček, Petr (advisor) ; Šaffa, Gabriel (referee)
Hypertrophied human culture is based on a specific propensity for social learning. During the transmission of information, a myriad of external and internal influences act on both the transmitor and recipient. Previous studies have focused on various biases (prestige bias, which causes, among others, a tendency to learn from older and more experienced individuals, or negative information bias, which makes us more likely to remember what to avoid etc.) that influence which cultural variants will successfully spread and how they will evolve. Some works delve into (among other things, bias-induced) cultural attraction, i.e., the tendency to transform information in a particular direction, while others treat cultural elements as genes; as nearly immutable entities. Almost all of them, however, (1.) model culture as composed from discrete entities and (2.) move within a single framework that they try to explore thoroughly. The present thesis attempts to bridge these gaps and to show the possibilities of studying cultural traits on a continuous scale. Using data from an application styled as a trivia guessing game, it aims to quantify the influence of different factors on the transmission of cultural information. Participants are presented with previous participants' estimates of different lengths, weights and...
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Use of individual acoustic monitoring to detect changes of Yellowhammer song in time
Kouřil, Jan ; Petrusková, Tereza (advisor) ; Rubáčová, Lucia (referee)
Birdsong transmitted through populations and generations via social learning is one of the most famous and well-studied examples of culture in animal kingdom. Over time song may change as part of so-called cultural evolution which can be monitored in many ways. However, the most effective way to reveal the mechanisms driving the change of song over time is individual monitoring. In case of songbirds ringing and other invasive methods are the most usual methods for it. But these have issues like the need to capture the bird or difficulty of reading the rings in some environments. But if the vocalizations of a bird species are individually specific and stable over time, it is possible to monitor individuals of that species using only recordings of their vocalizations by individual acoustic monitoring (IAM). However, this non-invasive, fast and effective monitoring method is still very rarely used in birds. The aim of this study was to confirm that the repertoire of the initial phrases of the Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) is individually specific and stable between years, making it a suitable species for individual acoustic monitoring. I confirmed this by visually analyzing spectrograms of recordings of 107 males detected over three years. I also verified my visual identification using two...
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Role of evolutional mechanisms in designing of acoustic signals
Rulfová, Alena ; Policht, Richard (advisor) ; Linhart, Pavel (referee)
Acoustic communication is a wide-spread phenomen in all animal taxones. The theme of evolutional mechanisms and their functioning in acoustic communication has become more and more frequently studied during last years, and geographic variation in acoustic signals has been reported in various taxa such as insect, birds, anurans and mammals. However, some evolutional mechanism still remain poorly understood. The mechanisms comprise mainly stochastics forces such as genetic drift and bottleneck or cultural drift. Genetic drift causes stochastic changes in acoustic signals, whereas bottleneck probably primarily spawns reduction of acoustic variability. Some acoustic parameters are shaped by habitat and others by species' phylogeny. Physical environment and other ecological factors play important role in shaping vocalizations in most species, and thus distantly related populations occupying similar habitats may possess very simmilar vocalization. Because of that, revealing phylogenetic pattern is possible only by careful cladistic analysis of vocal characters in taxa that have simple songs or calls that are not learned, and whose habitat distributions are well understood. By finding the proper acoustic parameters we can also e.g. map connection between acoustic divergence and glaciations, history of colonisation...
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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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Phenomenon watching videos and photos with cats on internet in the light of memetics
Bessisso, Omar ; Flegr, Jaroslav (advisor) ; Kopecký, Robin (referee)
Main theme of this bachelor's thesis is phenomenon of watching videos and photos with cats on the internet in the light of memetics, psychology and evolutionary psychology. Further discussion is focused on impacts of living with a cat and possibility of cats as social parasites. This thesis was created on the basis of current reasearch papers and data provided by various search engines. Pictures and videos of cats are one of the most viewed contents on the internet. Funny cat video can be captured by almost everyone. Procrastination is one of the concerns caused by aforementioned phenomenon. It shows that quick view of funny video may result in increased working morale and elevation of good mood. Cat videos are successful by the virtue of combining qualities of cuteness and humor. Intnernet memes featuring cats are successful as well, cats may be considered as the favorite animal of the internet, which is related to the fact, that cats are popular among introverted people. Introverted people spend more time on the internet. Cuteness of cats is possible (pre)adaptation for life in human society. Cats and kittens trigger cute response in same way toddlers do which may hinder parental instincts. The way cats look and act makes us crave to take care of them. Cats are likely social parasites. Cat...
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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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Role of evolutional mechanisms in designing of acoustic signals
Rulfová, Alena ; Policht, Richard (advisor) ; Linhart, Pavel (referee)
Acoustic communication is a wide-spread phenomen in all animal taxones. The theme of evolutional mechanisms and their functioning in acoustic communication has become more and more frequently studied during last years, and geographic variation in acoustic signals has been reported in various taxa such as insect, birds, anurans and mammals. However, some evolutional mechanism still remain poorly understood. The mechanisms comprise mainly stochastics forces such as genetic drift and bottleneck or cultural drift. Genetic drift causes stochastic changes in acoustic signals, whereas bottleneck probably primarily spawns reduction of acoustic variability. Some acoustic parameters are shaped by habitat and others by species' phylogeny. Physical environment and other ecological factors play important role in shaping vocalizations in most species, and thus distantly related populations occupying similar habitats may possess very simmilar vocalization. Because of that, revealing phylogenetic pattern is possible only by careful cladistic analysis of vocal characters in taxa that have simple songs or calls that are not learned, and whose habitat distributions are well understood. By finding the proper acoustic parameters we can also e.g. map connection between acoustic divergence and glaciations, history of colonisation...
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Dáva v kritike socializmu zmysel Hayekov prechod od debaty o racionalite ekonomickej kalkulácie k argumentácii kultúrnou a náboženskou evolúciou? Príklad Československa
Haško, Michal
The aim of this work is to examine whether Hayek's theory of cultural and religious evolution is applicable on Czechoslovak developments in 1980s. To that end, we first examine the relationship of Hayek's involvement in socialist calculation debate in 1930s-40s with his cultural evolutionary argument against socialism in his later thought. We provide text analysis of his work and resources concerning his argument on the knowledge problem of socialism in Czechoslovakia. We find that cultural evolutionary argument is of institutional nature and we follow Hayek in delineation of the history of civilization based on institutions sanctioned by cultures and religions. The last part is concerned about the revolution and its illustrative performances by the example of Poland. The last part is empirical. We delineate the cultural and religious developments in 1980s in Poland and its consequent fall of socialist regime. Subsequently we analyze cultural and religious developments in Czechoslovakia and arrive at our main contribution. Hayek's theory can be applied on the case of Czechoslovak developments.
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