Recent claims of culture in great apes have provoked fervent argument about the 'true' definition of culture, most of which has been unhelpful. Instead, a range of definitions should be used to explore different aspects of the cognitive processes that together result in human culture, many of which can be productively studied in non-humans. A richer cognitive account of the contents of culture needs to be developed and used to compare animal and human cultures, instead of sterile searching for a cognitive Rubicon between them. Exploring six views of culture, this article highlights the fundamental contrast of whether culture evolves as a by-product of cumulative change in cognitive mechanisms, or whether it is actively selected for its advantages.
CITATION STYLE
Byrne, R. W., Barnard, P. J., Davidson, I., Janik, V. M., McGrew, W. C., Miklósi, Á., & Wiessner, P. (2004). Understanding culture across species. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(8), 341–346. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2004.06.002
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