Abstract
Interactive conversation drives the transmission of
cultural information in small groups and large networks. In formal (e.g.
schools) and informal (e.g. home) learning settings, interactivity does not
only allow individuals and groups to faithfully transmit and learn new
knowledge and skills, but also to boost cumulative cultural evolution. Here we
investigate how interactivity affects performance, teaching, learning, innovation
and chosen diffusion mode (e.g. instructional discourse vs. storytelling) of
previously acquired information in a transmission chain experiment. In our
experiment, participants (n = 288) working in 48 chains with three generations
of pairs had to learn and complete a collaborative food preparation task
(ravioli-making), and then transmit their experience to a new generation of
participants in an interactive and non-interactive condition. Food preparation
is a real-world task that it is taught and learned across cultures and
transmitted over generations in families and groups. Pairs were defined as
teachers or learners depending on their role in the transmission chain. The
number of good exemplars of ravioli each pair produced was taken as measurement
of performance. Contrary to our expectations, the results did not reveal that
(1) performance increased over generations or that (2) interactivity in
transmission sessions promoted increased performance. However, the results
showed that (3) interactivity promoted the transmission of more information
from teachers to learners; (4) increased quantity of information transmission
from teachers led to higher performance in learners; (5) higher performance
generations introduced more innovations in transmission sessions; (6) learners
applied those transmitted innovations to their performance which made them
persist over generations; (7) storytelling was specialized for the transmission
of non-routine, unexpected information. Our findings offer new insights on how
interactivity, innovation and storytelling affect the cultural transmission of
complex collaborative tasks.
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