Cultural transmission in animals

Cultural transmission, also known as cultural learning, is the process and method of passing on socially learned information. Within a species, cultural transmission is greatly influenced by how adults socialize with each other and with their young. Differences in cultural transmission across species have been thought to be largely affected by external factors, such as the physical environment, that may lead an individual to interpret a traditional concept in a novel way. The environmental stimuli that contribute to this variance can include climate, migration patterns, conflict, suitability for survival, and endemic pathogens. Cultural transmission is hypothesized to be a critical process for maintaining behavioral characteristics in both humans and nonhuman animals over time, and its existence relies on innovation, imitation, and communication to create and propagate various aspects of animal behavior seen today.

Culture is defined as "all group-typical behavior patterns, shared by members of animal communities, that are to some degree reliant on socially learned and transmitted information". Additionally, culture is not passed on genetically from parents to offspring, but rather learned through experience and participation, which makes the evolution of cultural transmission greatly reliant on intra-species traditions. The likelihood of larger groups within a species developing and sharing these traditions with peers and offspring is much higher than that of one individual spreading some aspect of animal behavior to one or more members. This is why cultural transmission has been shown to be superior to individual learning, as it is a more efficient manner of spreading traditions and allowing members of a species to collectively inherit more adaptive behavior. This process by which offspring within a species acquires his or her own culture through mimicry or being introduced to traditions is referred to as enculturation. The role of cultural transmission in cultural evolution, then, is to provide the outlet for which organisms create and spread traditions that shape patterns of animal behavior visibly over generations.

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