What's social about social learning?
Abstract
Research on social learning in animals has revealed a rich variety of cases where animals--from caddis fly larvae to chimpanzees--acquire biologically important information by observing the actions of others. A great deal is known about the adaptive functions of social learning, but very little about the cognitive mechanisms that make it possible. Even in the case of imitation, a type of social learning studied in both comparative psychology and cognitive science, there has been minimal contact between the two disciplines. Social learning has been isolated from cognitive science by two longstanding assumptions: that it depends on a set of special-purpose modules--cognitive adaptations for social living; and that these learning mechanisms are largely distinct from the processes mediating human social cognition. Recent research challenges these assumptions by showing that social learning covaries with asocial learning; occurs in solitary animals; and exhibits the same features in diverse species, including humans. Drawing on this evidence, I argue that social and asocial learning depend on the same basic learning mechanisms; these are adapted for the detection of predictive relationships in all natural domains; and they are associative mechanisms--processes that encode information for long-term storage by forging excitatory and inhibitory links between event representations. Thus, human and nonhuman social learning are continuous, and social learning is adaptively specialized--it becomes distinctively "social"--only when input mechanisms (perceptual, attentional, and motivational processes) are phylogenetically or ontogenetically tuned to other agents.
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Collectively and individually, the reviewed theories imply that the MNS may play a role in empathy and, more broadly, social cognition.
“Collectively, and individually, these theories imply that the MNS may play a role in empathy and, more broadly, social cognition.”
From Is the Putative Mirror Neuron System Associated with Empathy? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (2021) · cites this paper as Heyes, 2012
Cites
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“Less obviously, the suggestion that social learning is mediated by associative processes does not in any way undermine the view that social learning in general, or particular types of social learning, support an epigenetic or cultural inheritance system (eg, Jablonka & Lamb, 2005; Richerson & Boyd, 2005).”
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Mirror neurons: from origin to function
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Self-citationComprehensive longitudinal study challenges the existence of neonatal imitation in humans
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Is the Putative Mirror Neuron System Associated with Empathy? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Bekkali, S., Youssef, G. J., Donaldson, P. H., Albein-Urios, N., Hyde, C., & Enticott, P. G. (2021) · Neuropsychology Review · doi:10.1007/s11065-020-09452-6 · Cited by 128 · see citing works
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“Such values may also be learned from observing social partners, likely through the same associative processes (Behrens et al., 2008; Heyes, 2012).”
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“Scientists working at the intersection of psychology, biology, and anthropology continue to dispute the precise mechanisms underlying social learning (Heyes, 2012).”
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Individual differences in intelligence and personality guide human social learning
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- Authors
- Heyes, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Heyes, Cecilia
- ORCID
- Heyes, Cecilia
- Venue
- Journal of Comparative Psychology
- Published
- 2012
- Volume
- 126
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 193-202
- ISSN
- 0093-4127 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-2087
- 0735-7036
- OpenAlex
- W2102186824
- Cited by
- 454
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 37 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 37 · 2020: 61 · 2019: 38 · 2018: 27 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 39 · 2015: 33 · 2014: 21 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 15
- FWCI
- 32.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of comparative psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Keywords
- social learning, imitation, asocial learning, associative learning, cognitive mechanisms, comparative cognition, animal cognition, social cognition, predictive learning, learning modules, human-animal comparison
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Psychological, Animals, Association Learning, Biological Evolution, Humans, Imitative Behavior, Learning, Social Behavior
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