Imitation or something simpler? Modelling simple mechanisms for social information processing

• Main Authors: Jason Noble, Peter M. Todd
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Rattus rattus
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.36.4617; http://www-abc.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/users/noble/Research/Social/imitationBook.ps.gz

Introduction In the pine forests of Israel, black rats Rattus rattus have hit upon a novel feeding technique. They strip the scales from pine cones to obtain the nutritious seeds inside (Terkel, 1996). The behaviour seems to be socially learned in some way, rather than genetically inherited: Terkel has shown that rat pups will learn to strip cones if they are born to a naive mother but then fostered to an experienced one. What mechanism is implicated in the transmission of this behaviour? It could be that rat pups are genuinely imitating their mothers, but this would mean that they are solving a complex correspondence problem in translating novel visual input---from observations of cone manipulation---into appropriate motor outputs. Might a simpler mechanism be involved? The social transmission of pine cone stripping behaviour is only one example of the general strategy of gaining information from the behaviour of one's conspecifics. Every animal is constantly