Cultural transmission of complex hierarchical sequences: The role of ritualisation and dyadic interaction
Creators: name: Kapitány, Rohan
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Life Sciences
subject: Quantitative Psychology
subject: Cognitive Psychology
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: Psychology
subject: FOS: Psychology

description: Cultural transmission of complex hierarchical sequences: The role of ritualisation and dyadic interaction Kapitany, R1,2 &amp; Reindl, E3. University of Keele, School of Psychology Oxford University, School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography University of St Andrews, School of Psychology and Neuroscience DISCLAIMER: This is a pre-registration document. This study was originally conceived of as a lab-based behavioral study, but COVID-19 intervened. We also anticipated that this study was going to be a registered report, but again, COVID-19. Thus, we are doing a ‘soft’ registered report, in which our introduction is presented in a fairly mature form, while maintaining high clarity in our pre-reg and analysis plan (or so we hope!). FOR THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINING ADDITIONAL TABLES GO TO: https://osf.io/jvem4/ Introduction The success of Homo sapiens throughout evolutionary time is arguably attributable to our capacity for high-fidelity social transmission and our collective capacity for cumulative culture (Henrich, 2017; Mesoudi, 2011). There are many flavours of social transmission - including imitation, emulation, and imitation-based teaching (Caldwell &amp; Millen, 2009; W. J. E. Hoppitt et al., 2008; Mesoudi, 2011), as well as a range of heuristics for selecting appropriate models from which to learn (Atkisson et al., 2012; Kempe &amp; Mesoudi, 2014b; Mesoudi, 2008; Over &amp; Carpenter, 2012) - all of which are generally improvements over individual trial-and-error learning, as any given individual can benefit from the hard-won knowledge of others (Rendell et al., 2010). Cumulative culture describes the emergent phenomenon by which groups of individuals collectively maintain individual knowledge and, through processes of social learning and innovation, share and propagate such knowledge, which, in turn, allows these learned cultural traits to become increasingly diverse and complex (Lewis &amp; Laland, 2012). These iterated processes of social learning and innovation have also been described as a ‘cultural ratchet’ which protects against loss of cultural information (Lewis &amp; Laland, 2012; Tennie et al., 2009). As a result, the volume and diversity of human cultural behaviours and technologies have increased exponentially over time (Enquist et al., 2008). For most of our collective history, such cultural traits and technologies have been maintained and transmitted via oral transmission and pedagogy without external aids such as writing. Much research has focused on the psychological mechanisms underpinning faithful cultural transmission, such as social learning biases and strategies (Heyes, 2018; W. Hoppitt &amp; Laland, 2013). For example, Heyes (Heyes, 2016a, 2016b) suggests that humans possess metacognitive social learning strategies, i.e., explicit rules specifying whom to learn from in a given situation, which represent the accumulated wisdom of previous generations and which enable us to copy behaviour even more precisely and efficiently. Another focus of research has investigated the importance of group size for maintaining high levels of cultural technology (Derex et al., 2013; Henrich, 2004; Kempe &amp; Mesoudi, 2014a; Malinsky-Buller &amp; Hovers, 2019; Muthukrishna et al., 2014; Read &amp; Andersson, 2019). Put broadly, larger groups are capable of greater division of labour, allowing [more] individuals to develop [more] specialized skills, which results in less [collective] vulnerability to knowledge loss, which in turn allows learners to access a greater pool of teachers who collectively are specialised in a greater diversity of skills. Somewhat less attention has been paid to aspects of the cultural traits themselves that facilitate transmission (but see Claidière &amp; Sperber, 2007; Sperber &amp; Hirschfeld, 2004). Thus, the focus of the present paper is on which features of the execution of cultural traits allow for more successful retention and transmission of those traits. Proponents of the Cultural Attraction Theory (CAT) have challenged the notion that cultural stability is mainly the result of faithful copying (Morin, 2015): they argue that humans rarely aim for high-fidelity copying, but rather are motivated to acquire traits in ways that suit their current goals, preferences, and dispositions, and so learners construct new forms of the observed trait rather than produce exact replicas. Thus, variants of an observed trait do not deviate randomly, but cluster around a specific point in the space of possibilities (Sperber, 1996), which explains the stability of the trait at a macro-level (Claidière &amp; Sperber, 2007). As a result, certain cultural traits are more likely to be preserved over generations than others as they are more useful or adaptive, given recurrent contexts (Morin, 2015). Factors that influence which cultural variants are more likely to occur and be maintained (factors of attraction) can be cognitive, motivational or ecological (Buskell, 2017; Claidière &amp; Sperber, 2007; Sperber, 1996; Sperber &amp; Hirschfeld, 2004): That is, some traits are more “attractive” than others because they match better our information-processing and memory capabilities, natural dispositions, or emotional mechanisms, or because they are more efficient than others in a certain type of environment. The current study aims to investigate the role of another potential factor: ritualistic action. Ritualistic actions are defined as actions which are performed intentionally, but which are causally opaque to the learner as well as goal demoted; respectively, these qualities relate to the difficulty a learner has in identifying the causal mechanisms of the action, and the demonstrator’s intention or goal in performing them. Specifically, our study explores whether ritualistic actions, when embedded within a larger action sequence, can lead to better memory and more faithful transmission of the action sequence compared to the same sequence lacking ritualistic actions (R. Kapitány et al., 2018; Rossano, 2012). The reason for this hypothesis is two-fold: First, because ritualistic actions, due to their causal opacity and goal demotion, cannot be modified or improved (as they are not instrumental) they tend to be reproduced with exceptional fidelity (Nielsen et al., 2018). Second, ritualistic actions tend to produce cognitive capture in the observers as they are cognitively surprising and salient. This is because ritualistic actions feature unnecessary repetition, instrumental redundancy, and stereotyped qualities of the motor actions (Kapitány &amp; Nielsen, 2015, 2017; Legare et al., 2015; Nielbo &amp; Sørensen, 2016). Evidence exists that the causal opacity of ritualistic actions violates the learner’s predictions for future action during observation, thus arresting attention and potentially enhancing the processing of, and memory for, the action sequence (R. Kapitány et al., 2018; Rossano, 2012). So why are ritualistic actions cognitively salient and surprising? Ritualistic actions embedded within sequences increase the number of event boundaries (i.e., they create more demarcations between units of action) due to the fact that they produce prediction errors (Hudson et al., 2018; Nielbo &amp; Sørensen, 2011, 2013; Zacks et al., 2007); introducing event boundaries, in turn, has been shown to enhance memory for [information at] the event boundaries, as well as the overall action sequence, and has been implicated in other memory processes, for example, consistency in correctly identifying event boundaries is predictive of memory related cognitive decline in older age (Bailey et al., 2013, 2012; Flores et al., 2014, 2017; Gold et al., 2017; Nielbo &amp; Sørensen, 2016; Old &amp; Naveh-Benjamin, 2008; Radvansky, 2012; Spencer &amp; Raz, 1995; Swallow et al., 2009). Thus, due to their potential attention-grabbing and action-parsing function, ritualistic actions have been proposed to enhance memory for action sequences when they constitute a low proportion of overall actions (R. Kapitány et al., 2018). However, because ritualistic actions function due to the prediction error they generate, an overabundance of prediction error - while highly salient - leads to a diminished capacity to recall and perform the modelled sequence as the observer is flooded while attending to multiple errors, rather than coherent hierarchies of action (Botvinick et al., 2004; Carter et al., 1999; Engle, 2002; Rybanska et al., 2018). Humans, uniquely, are prepared to integrate ritualized actions into their behavior when replicating observed sequences of action - a tendency which emerges early in life and is referred to as overimitation (Clay &amp; Tennie, 2018; Hoehl et al., 2019; Horner &amp; Whiten, 2005; Lyons et al., 2007; Marsh et al., 2019; McGuigan et al., 2011; Nielsen et al., 2018; Whiten et al., 2016). For example, Clay and Tennie (2018) presented children (3 to 5 years of age) and bonobos with an adult human demonstrator who performed actions on a puzzle box. First, the demonstrator traced a cross on the top of the box and then traced around its groove before opening it and retrieving a reward. While most children readily copied these ritualistic actions, bonobos did not. And while overimitation in children often decreases when the person demonstrating the ritualistic actions is absent during the test phase (supporting the notion of affiliative and/or normative motives underlying overimitation), it does not vanish completely (Hoehl et al., 2019; Nielsen &amp; Blank, 2011). Through the lens of CAT, when actions are goal demoted it is not immediately possible for observers to a) intuit the demonstrator’s motives, and b) apply those actions to their own motives. Thus, the redundant actions are maintained because it is not clear how, if, and why, such actions could be adapted. Further evidence for this reasoning comes from a study by Whiten, Allan, Devlin, Kseib, Raw, and McGuigan (2016), in which human adults and children aged 4 to 9 years were found to copy irrelevant actions on a puzzle box under naturalistic conditions. The participants had observed a set of actions performed (but not explicitly modelled) by a research confederate - when observing the confederate, the participants were not aware that they were part of an experiment nor that they were being observed. Results showed that the majority of adult and child participants reproduced all causally irrelevant actions on the box, supporting the notion that humans readily copy actions of others, even when the causal relevance of these actions is not identifiable and the possibility of affiliating with others is removed. Finally, work by Kapitány, Reindl, &amp; Nielsen (under review) showed that children (4 to 6 years) who were shown a ritualistic procedure on an overimitation puzzle box, imitated the procedure both immediately after it was demonstrated to them and, crucially, at comparable rates after a 30-minute delay without prompting (i.e., children performed the actions exclusively from memory) - an effect not influenced by the presence or absence of the demonstrator. Some scholars have even argued that [the emergence of faculties for] overimitation played a role during the Acheulean period (1.76–0.13 million years ago), facilitating the emergence of cumulative culture (Rossano, 2017). In sum, while the motivations to overimitate are manifold (Schleihauf et al., 2018), the literature shows that humans have an early-developing, cross-cultural, strong, and robust tendency to copy causally opaque and goal demoted actions, a phenomenon that is not seen in non-humans (Berl &amp; Hewlett, 2015; Clay &amp; Tennie, 2018; Hoehl et al., 2019; Horner &amp; Whiten, 2005; Lyons et al., 2007; Nielsen et al., 2014; Nielsen &amp; Tomaselli, 2010; Whiten et al., 2016, 2009). A great deal of experimental work examining the tendency for humans to copy ritualistic actions has been conducted in children (see above). While less work has been done with adults (under experimental conditions), there exists anthropological evidence suggesting that rituals and ritualistic actions are important (often under adaptive conditions): (Boyer &amp; Liénard, 2006) have proposed that ritualistic actions tend to activate a precaution response in the observer, as such actions tend to resemble actions which are typically associated with harm-reduction behaviors (such as cleanliness and purity). Thus, such actions (wilfully or otherwise) motivate observers to perform the whole sequence as doing so may ameliorate some unknown danger. Some evidence supports this position: during procedures known to be hazardous or uncertain, individuals tend to introduce or perform ritualistic actions (Keren et al., 2013). The performance of rituals also tends to restore one’s locus of control in relation to an unpredictable or uncontrollable situation, and to reduce the experience of anxiety (Anastasi &amp; Newberg, 2008; Boyer &amp; Liénard, 2008; Krátký et al., 2016; Lang et al., 2015; Legare &amp; Souza, 2014). Given the anxiolytic properties of ritual and ritualistic action, it is a widely observed phenomenon that traditional groups of people engage in rituals before risky, low-probability, high-yield activities (such as open-ocean fishing), but do not do so for less risky, higher-probability, lower-yield activities (such as lake fishing; (Ginsberg &amp; Malinowski, 1924), p. 62). Finally, there is evidence that complex procedures that would be risky or harmful if performed incorrectly are adhered to faithfully, even when those who perform the actions lack a causal understanding of the critical actions (Banea et al., 1992; Henrich, 2017). For example, cassava is processed into flour by many traditional groups, (Cardoso et al., 2005), yet cassava contains dangerous levels of cyanide which are too low to have an observable immediate impact on health, but can have a devastating long-term impact. Many production methods, however, have stabilized on a process in which the cassava root is soaked in water for four days, despite the fact that shorter periods of time would be sufficient to process the cassava into flour; however, doing so after less than four days does not safely extract the toxin (Banea et al., 1992). Processing for longer periods is slower, more time-consuming, and does not appear to change one’s taste preference for the product, yet many communities have arrived at and maintain the longer practice (Banea et al., 1992; Henrich, 2017) without an apparent comprehension of the relevant causal process. Even some medieval medicines contain procedures that are not prima facie obviously necessary, but which play important - but invisible - causal roles (Harrison et al., 2015). And so, the presence of ritualistic actions (or simply actions which are like ritualistic actions because they are causally opaque and goal demoted) can arouse a strong response to copy-all-actions for many reasons, ranging from normativity, to an increase in perceived control and a reduction in anxiety, and an avoidance of harm - while the apparent requirement to understand the actions remains absent. The current work was also motivated in order to make a methodological argument: The study of imitation, overimitation, and ritualistic action has typically been executed in the context of artificial puzzle boxes (which are sometimes generously referred to as ‘artificial fruit’), but not much research has used more ecologically valid contexts. And while some researchers have theorized about imitation in more adaptive traits such as making stone tools (Shipton &amp; Nielsen, 2018; Stout, 2011), baskets (Hewlett et al., 2011) or knot tying (Caldwell &amp; Millen, 2009; Kempe &amp; Mesoudi, 2014a), only little experimental work has been executed. Here, we examine another adaptive trait, namely a cooking-like process (see also (Bietti et al., 2019) who used a pasta-making task to study different aspects of cultural transmission). We argue that examining imitation and ritualistic actions in contexts that are more analogous to our historical context and our evolutionary problems may shed more light on the faculties that underpin the phenomenon. The aim of the current study was to examine whether including a small amount of ritualistic actions into an action sequence would enhance a learner’s memory for and thus the transmission fidelity of the overall sequence. For this, we would present human adults with videos (each 6 to 6.5 min long) of a demonstrator making an unknown concoction. The participants would be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: in the instrumental condition, all actions are causally relevant for the goal; in the ‘low ritual’ condition, 2/7 of the actions are replaced by ritualistic actions, and in the ‘high ritual’ condition, 4/7 of the actions are ritualistic. In addition, participants would also be administered a memory test to control for participants’ baseline memory capacities. Methods Experimental Design and Procedure Note that our experiment was initially planned as a laboratory experiment, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic was modified into an online experiment. This online experiment will test individual human adults in a between-conditions design with three conditions (‘purely instrumental’/ ‘low ritual’/ ‘high ritual’), to which they will be randomly assigned to. The experiment will be created and hosted by the Gorilla Experiment Builder (www.gorilla.sc). After having read the introduction to the experiment and given consent in taking part, participants of all conditions will first be administered a short-term memory task, the Forward Digit Span Task (5 min). This task presents participants with a series of numbers between 1 and 9, with each series being between three and seven numbers long. Numbers are preceded by a fixation cross, presented for 800 ms, after which the number is displayed for 200 ms. After the end of a series, participants need to type in number by number into a text field and hit Enter after each number. The task starts with a warm-up trial in which three numbers are presented, and the participant needs to recall the series. No feedback will be given after the warm-up. Independent of performance, participants proceed to the test. It consists of two sets each of a 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, and 7-number-series. The presentation of sets varies randomly between participants. No feedback on performance will be given at the end of the task. Next, participants will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In all conditions, participants will proceed to watching one video once (full instrumental video: 6:26 min; low ritual video: 6:26 min; high ritual video: 6:09 min). Participants will be informed that they are going to watch a video in which someone is making a special mixture and that they have to remember the action sequence presented. Then they are presented with a picture of materials, showing all the stimuli used in the sequence as well as a few distractor items (Fig. 1): a large mixing bowl (distractor), matches, filter paper, kettle, stirring rod, brown seeds (distractor), shot measure (distractor), mortar/pestle, bottle of dye, brown powder, green seeds, mug (distractor), yellow powder (distractor), spoon, tea towel (distractor), metal filter (distractor), saucepan (distractor), beaker, fork (distractor), lighter (distractor), white powder, dropper, candle, water. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of five different versions of this image, which differ in the order of the items. Upon hitting the “next” button, the respective video will play. These videos show a demonstrator making a concoction, focusing almost exclusively on the demonstrator’s hands and arms. The videos have sound (but the demonstrator is not talking), as well as subtitles/labels describing each action. The reason for including subtitles is that we judged the task to be rather challenging (the action sequence was over 6 min long) and so we decided to provide participants across conditions with some information to help structure what they observe. Figure 1. An example of the materials displayed to participants. Five iterations of this figure exist, where the location of the objects are shuffled. Thus, stimuli were pseudo-randomised. The ‘purely instrumental’ condition is a control condition, where the demonstrated action sequence - consisting of seven steps (see Table 1) - is performed in a straightforward manner in which each causal mechanism of each action and the goal of the actor in performing each action is apparent. Thus, the demonstrated action sequence is fully instrumental, thus containing no ritualized actions. Then there are two experimental conditions, in which some of the instrumental actions are replaced by ritualized actions, i.e., actions which are causally opaque and/or goal demoted: In the ‘low ritual’ condition, 2/7 of the actions demonstrated within the sequence are replaced by ritualistic actions. In the ‘high ritual’ condition, 4/7 of the actions demonstrated within the sequence are ritualistic. Table 1 outlines the action sequence for the control condition (left) and how each action was manipulated in order to make it redundant (the two right columns). The ‘low ritual’ sequence included ritualized elements in steps 2 and 4, while the ‘high ritual’ sequence included ritualized elements in steps 3, 5, 6 and 7. [INSERT TABLE 1 HERE] Having watched the video, participants are presented with two tasks for which they need to remember the demonstrated action sequence. Task 1: Object recall In this task, participants need to select from a list of items all those items that were involved in the procedure (individually for each of the seven steps). Participants will read the following instructions: Now imagine that you would want to make the same mixture you saw being made in the video, in the exact same way! There were 7 steps altogether. On the following pages, you will see a picture of all the items used in the video. For each step, select those items that were used in that step. Doublecheck your answer before you hit the "Next" button, as you won't be able to go back! Participants will then be presented with a picture of the materials (as above, including the necessary and the distractor items). Again, participants will be randomly allocated to one of five pictures differing in the order of the items. Underneath the picture, the instructions will be “Step 1: Which of these items were used in Step 1 of 7? Please select all items that were used in Step 1.”. Below will be a list with all the items in the image and participants need to click on all items they believe were used in step 1. Upon hitting the next button, the same page appears, this time asking to select the items used in step 2, etc. Task 2: Action recall In this task, participants will be presented with a picture of the correct materials used in each step and asked to describe the sequence as detailed as possible. Participants read: Next, we will show you pictures of the materials needed in each step and would like you to write down - in as much detail as possible - what was done in each step. Please try to make this as accurate as possible to what you saw. Imagine a friend wanted to follow the same recipe but hadn't seen the video. We would hope that, using only your notes, they can accurately recreate each step. So try to be as detailed as you can, as if you were writing a recipe! Don't forget to include details like what objects you need, what the relevant quantities were, what needs to be done, for how long, and in which order! Then, participants will see an image of the materials used in step 1 and read: “Please describe below what you need to do in this step. Please be as detailed as possible, so that someone who has not seen the video can still make the mixture.” After entering text and hitting the Next button, participants will see an image with the materials used in step 2 and asked to describe the actions in this step, etc. After the action recall task, participants will again be presented with the Forward Digit Span Task (using different number sequences). This task is administered again to investigate any memory depletion effects that might occur from carrying out the main task. After that, participants will be debriefed. Total testing time is estimated to be 30 min. Coding, Outcome Variables and Predictors. For the Object recall task, for each step, each correctly identified item will be scored with 1 point. Table 2 presents the list of items that need to be identified in each step to gain the maximum score. Any omitted or misclassified items will be added to a separate error score. In the Action recall task, for each step, participants are presented with an image of all the items used in that step and asked to describe how these are used. For each step, there is a list of key words that need to be present in the description in order to gain the maximum score (Table 3). [INSERT TABLE 2 HERE] The following dependent variables will be calculated based on these scores: Object recall: Object recall is a ratio value calculated by adding up all the correct items participants selected during the ‘recall’ task and dividing by all the incorrect items and omissions. Action recall: Action recall is a proportion calculated by awarding participants points per correct statement about a corresponding step (per Table 3), and dividing over the maximum possible score. There is no penalty for incorrect statements. Success: Success (based on the action recall step) is a binary value that indicates whether or not the sequence as described produces the outcome as demonstrated. Thus, a participant may score 100% on the ‘action recall’ measure, but if they introduced an incorrect statement (say, adding two measures of water, instead of one) then they would score zero on success. Innovative errors: Innovative errors (based on the action recall step) are the total number of actions performed that could not be scored as they were, in effect, ‘invented’ by the participant. We will also explore the relationships of errors (missteps, omissions, or invented errors) with regard to whether they occurred in control, low, or high ritual conditions, as well as whether or not they occurred in ritualistic or non-ritualistic steps. The DV from the Forward Digit Span task will be the proportion of correctly remembered individual numbers out of all presented individual numbers. Hypotheses and Analyses All analyses will be carried out in R (version 3.1.4). Our specified analyses will all include memory scores on the first digit-span task, and as previous research has found consistent gender differences in short-term and working memory performance (Voyer et al., 2007), we will include gender as an additional control variable for all our analyses. We make the following predictions (and see Supplementary Material for R code). Primary Analysis: Object recall: Compared to the control condition, we predict that a low amount of ritualistic actions will enhance participants’ memory for the Objects, whereas a higher amount will be detrimental. Thus, we predict (a) that those in the low ritual condition will have a significantly higher object recall score than those in both the control condition and the high ritual condition. In the event that scores in the low condition are significantly higher than the high condition, we will execute a planned contrast between the control and high-ritual conditions. We will use a between groups ANOVA [aov(object recall ~ digit-score + gender + condition)]. Action recall: As above, we predict (a) that those in the low ritual condition will have a significantly higher action recall score than those in both the control condition and the high ritual condition. In the event that scores in the low condition are significantly higher than the high condition, we will execute a planned contrast between the control and high-ritual conditions. We will use a between groups ANOVA [aov(object recall ~ digit-score + gender + condition)]. Success: Using a chi-2 analysis, we predict that there will be significantly more successes in the low ritual condition, than in either the control or high-ritual condition. Innovative errors: Given this measure is essentially independent from the other hypotheses (i.e., this measure is not captured by the action recall score or success), and is motivated by the hypothesis that high rates of ritualistic action lead to cognitive load, we expect that the high ritual condition will significantly and positively predict innovative errors. [model &lt;- lm(Innovation_errors ~ digit-score + gender + condition)]. Secondary Analysis: We predict that scores on the post-test digit-span task will be significantly and negatively predicted by condition. [model &lt;- lm(digit_score_post ~ digit-score + gender + condition)] Exploratory analysis: We will conduct exploratory analyses on whether or not rituals were more likely to be remembered than instrumental actions. Participants We performed an a priori sample size calculation using the ‘pwr’ package in R (Champley et al., 2018) . We used the pwr.f2.test() function: We input four numerators in our degrees of freedom (Memory, Gender, and the [remaining two levels of the] IV), a level of .05, and a power of .90. We approximately estimated that the entire model would account for 15% of the total variance. Thus, our ‘f2’ value was .15/(1 - 0.15) = .176. The output suggested we need 103 participants to find our anticipated effect. We plan to recruit 120 individuals, anticipating some attrition. Participants will be recruited using Prolific, andare going to be re-imbursed £5 pounds for their time. We anticipate that the task will take 30 minutes, and so we will be paying at a rate that exceeded the highest minimum wage in the UK. SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL Video “purely instrumental” Video “low ritual” Video “high ritual” Participant information letter and consent form Questionnaire on demographic data References Anastasi, M. W., &amp; Newberg, A. B. (2008). A preliminary study of the acute effects of religious ritual on anxiety. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine , 14(2), 163–165. Atkisson, C., O’Brien, M. J., &amp; Mesoudi, A. (2012). Adult Learners in a Novel Environment Use Prestige-Biased Social Learning. In Evolutionary Psychology (Vol. 10, Issue 3, p. 147470491201000). https://doi.org/10.1177/147470491201000309 Bailey, H. R., Kurby, C. A., Giovannetti, T., &amp; Zacks, J. M. (2013). Action perception predicts action performance. 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