Culture's building blocks: Investigating cultural evolution in a LEGO construction task
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
Standard
In: Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 5, No. SEP, 1017, 12.09.2014.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
Harvard
APA
Vancouver
Bibtex
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
T1 - Culture's building blocks
T2 - Investigating cultural evolution in a LEGO construction task
AU - McGraw, John J.
AU - Wallot, Sebastian
AU - Mitkidis, Panagiotis
AU - Roepstorff, Andreas
N1 - FP7, Funding number: 264828
PY - 2014/9/12
Y1 - 2014/9/12
N2 - One of the most essential but theoretically vexing issues regarding the notion of culture is that of cultural evolution and transmission: how a group's accumulated solutions to invariant challenges develop and persevere over time. But at the moment, the notion of applying evolutionary theory to culture remains little more than a suggestive trope. Whereas the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory has provided an encompassing scientific framework for the selection and transmission of biological adaptations, a convincing theory of cultural evolution has yet to emerge. One of the greatest challenges for theorists is identifying the appropriate time scales and units of analysis in order to reduce the intractably large and complex phenomenon of "culture" into its component "building blocks." In this paper, we present a model for scientifically investigating cultural processes by analyzing the ways people develop conventions in a series of LEGO construction tasks. The data revealed a surprising pattern in the selection of building bricks as well as features of car design across consecutive building sessions. Our findings support a novel methodology for studying the development and transmission of culture through the microcosm of interactive LEGO design and assembly.
AB - One of the most essential but theoretically vexing issues regarding the notion of culture is that of cultural evolution and transmission: how a group's accumulated solutions to invariant challenges develop and persevere over time. But at the moment, the notion of applying evolutionary theory to culture remains little more than a suggestive trope. Whereas the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory has provided an encompassing scientific framework for the selection and transmission of biological adaptations, a convincing theory of cultural evolution has yet to emerge. One of the greatest challenges for theorists is identifying the appropriate time scales and units of analysis in order to reduce the intractably large and complex phenomenon of "culture" into its component "building blocks." In this paper, we present a model for scientifically investigating cultural processes by analyzing the ways people develop conventions in a series of LEGO construction tasks. The data revealed a surprising pattern in the selection of building bricks as well as features of car design across consecutive building sessions. Our findings support a novel methodology for studying the development and transmission of culture through the microcosm of interactive LEGO design and assembly.
KW - Psychology
KW - Cultural evolution
KW - Cultural transmission
KW - Joint action
KW - Joint attention
KW - Materiality
KW - Path dependence
KW - Schema theory
KW - Shared intentionality
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84907225799&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01017
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01017
M3 - Journal articles
AN - SCOPUS:84907225799
VL - 5
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
SN - 1664-1078
IS - SEP
M1 - 1017
ER -