Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture

Sean Prall: Perceptions that matter: using peer evaluations and dyadic data to explore behavior in rural Namibia
2023-03-06 12:00 - 13:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | 352 Haines Hall
Dr. Sean Prall
Dept. of Anthropology, University of Missouri
https://sprall.github.io/
Title: Perceptions that matter: using peer evaluations and dyadic data to explore behavior in rural Namibia
Abstract: Reputation and social status are central to research on mating, social learning, and cooperation. However, evolutionary social scientists face significant methodological difficulties in accurately measuring people’s perceptions of others. As a result, most studies in anthropology and psychology rely on hypotheticals or experimental paradigms in lab-based settings. While this work has yielded insight into how people think about these domains, these approaches are limited in their ecological validity, ability to capture a dynamic and competitive social environment, and may recapitulate social norms instead of yield novel information about social dynamics. An alternative approach, which I will explore in this talk, is the use of dyadic peer evaluations. Using two unique datasets, each with more than 10,000 ratings from a single community in Namibia, I will explore two case studies: 1) mating market competition, and 2) women’s status. I will highlight the benefits and potential drawbacks of dyadic peer evaluations and explore how these methods can be used as part of a larger toolkit to explore cultural and behavioral attributes of human populations.
Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92826436236?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

Ainash Childebayeva: Population Genetics and Signatures of Selection in Early Neolithic European Farmers
2023-02-27 12:00 - 13:30
Dr. Ainash Childebayeva
Dept of Biological Anthropology, University of Kansas
We are hoping that this talk will be both in person and via Zoom.
Title: Population Genetics and Signatures of Selection in Early Neolithic European Farmers
Abstract: Throughout our evolutionary history, humans have encountered different environmental and cultural changes that left a mark in our genomes. One such event is associated with the transition from hunting and gathering to a more sedentary farming lifestyle, also known as the Neolithic transition. In the last ten years, human expansion and migration in the course of the Neolithic transition in western Eurasia has been one of the major topics in ancient DNA research. Studies have shown that the spread of agriculture from the Near East to Europe was associated with a large-scale human migration. The changes in subsistence and lifestyle associated with the Neolithic, and specifically a more sedentary lifestyle, living in larger groups, and the change in the diet, have been hypothesized to involve genetic adaptation as well. I will present genome-wide ancient DNA results from an early Neolithic farming community from Central Germany, together with available published data. The genetic profile of the Neolithic farmers of Europe shows a primarily Anatolian Neolithic-like ancestry with a small degree of admixture with the local hunter-gatherers. Moreover, genetic data show that the Neolithic farmers of Central Germany lived in large communities that did not show strong signatures of either patri- or matrilocality. Increasing the cohort size of the early farmers to almost 100 individuals made it possible to perform frequency- and haplotype-based scans of selection. Based on the results of the test, selection signals in pathways linked to metabolism and immune system especially stood out, suggesting the effect of the cultural transition on the genomes of the early farmers. These findings shed light on the evolutionary pressures, such as infectious disease and changing diet, that were faced by the early farmers of Western Eurasia.
Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92826436236?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

Tina Lasisi: Hair, skin, and the racialization of human variation.
2023-02-13 12:00 - 13:30 | 352 Haines Hall
Dr. Tina Lasisi, Quantitative and Computational Biology, USC
https://anth.la.psu.edu/research/research-labs/jablonski-lab/dr-tina-lasisi/
Dr. Lasisi will present in person, as well as via Zoom.
Title: Hair, skin, and the racialization of human variation.
Abstract: After decades of broadcasting the message that race is a social construct, we find uncritical taxonomic groupings of humans creep back into discussions across disciplines. The terms “race,” “ethnicity,” and “ancestry group” are used alongside typological descriptors of traits like skin and hair, often distorting their variability in a way that reinforces racial typologies. The adoption of quantitative phenotyping methods vastly improved our understanding of skin pigmentation and its evolutionary function while providing a novel non-racialized vocabulary for discussing variation in this trait. The study of hair lags behind in the exploration of phenotypic variation with a similar level of complexity. This talk will discuss the impact of methods and racialized perceptions on our understanding of the evolutionary biology of various traits and the implications of this knowledge in healthcare, forensics, and emerging technologies.
Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92826436236?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

Sriram Sankararaman, The role of archaic admixture in human evolution
2023-02-06 12:00 - 13:30
Dr. Sriram Sankararaman
UCLA Departments of Computer Science, Human Genetics, and Computational Medicine
http://web.cs.ucla.edu/~sriram/
This talk will be in person as well as being accessible via Zoom.
Title: The role of archaic admixture in human evolution

Abstract: Over the past decade, the ability to sequence genomes from both present-day
and archaic humans (including our closest evolutionary relatives, the Neanderthals) has transformed our understanding of human history. Analyzing these genome sequences paints a picture of human history in which present-day humans migrated out of Africa but exchanged genes with multiple archaic human populations. I will describe statistical methods that identify segments of DNA inherited from archaic humans that are surviving in our genomes today and how these maps of introgressed archaic DNA are providing insights into human migration and biology. Despite this progress, our understanding of the contribution of archaic introgression to populations in Africa remains limited, in part due to the challenges in obtaining ancient DNA in Africa. Leveraging recently developed approaches that enable inferences about archaic populations without access to their genome sequences, we show that west African populations today inherit substantial genetic ancestry from an as-yet-unidentified archaic ghost population that diverged prior to the split of modern humans and Neanderthals. Finally, we combine maps of introgressed Neanderthal DNA with phenotypic datasets collected in hundreds of thousands of individuals to assess the contribution of introgressed Neanderthal DNA to complex traits.
Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92826436236?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

Asher Rosinger, title: Water needs, water insecurity, and nutritional adaptations: The intersecting pathways to human biology
2023-01-30 12:00 - 13:30
Dr. Asher Rosinger
Department of Biobehavioral Health, Penn State
https://hhd.psu.edu/contact/asher-rosinger
This talk will be presented via Zoom.
Abstract: Dr. Asher Rosinger will discuss one of humanity’s oldest and increasingly important questions, how do populations meet their water needs in areas with water problems and how do these strategies affect health and well-being. This talk will discuss how physical and nutritional environments shape variation in human water needs including in early life, how experiences with water become embodied in health and disease patterns, and how humans cope with these environmental stressors through their diets and behavior. It will feature work from the Bolivian Amazon, Northern Kenya, and the US.
Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92826436236?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

Amanda Lea: Lifestyle change and health in the Turkana of northwest Kenya
2023-01-23 12:00 - 13:30 | 352 Haines Hall
Dr Amanda Lea, Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University
http://lea-lab.org/index.html
Title: Lifestyle change and health in the Turkana of northwest Kenya
Abstract: The environments experienced by individuals living “modern”, “urban”, or “Western” lifestyles are deeply diverged from the ancestral selection pressures that have shaped human genomes through evolutionary time. Consequently, many have hypothesized that this “mismatch” —between evolved human phenotypes and modern life—is responsible for increasing rates of non-communicable diseases worldwide. However, despite the popularity and intuitive appeal of this idea, it has been difficult to test in practice. In particular, we lack direct evidence that health issues emerge when populations adapted to subsistence-level practices encounter modern, urban environments. Further, we lack an understanding of how the many factors that change during urban transitions, including physical activity, diet, early life conditions, and the social environment, interact to ultimately impact health. My research aims to address these gaps, by working with the Turkana people of Northwest Kenya who are currently transitioning from a traditional, pastoralist lifestyle to an urban, market-integrated lifestyle. Using genomic, transcriptomic, anthropological, and biomedical data collected from across this lifestyle gradient, my work centers on understanding 1) how the Turkana have adapted through evolutionary time to their pastoralist lifestyle, 2) the degree to which physiology and health are altered when individuals from this locally adapted genetic background move to cities, and 3) how early life experiences, social environmental conditions, diet, and other key factors contribute to lifestyle effects on health. Together, this work aims to bring attention to non-communicable disease emergence in transitioning societies, and to more generally shed new light on our evolutionary interpretation of environmentally-induced disease.
Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92826436236?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

Marina Davila-Ross: Laughter and Smiles: Towards understanding the Complexity and Phylogenetic Continuity of Positive Communication in Hominids
2023-01-09 12:00 - 13:30 | 352 Haines Hall
Dr. Marina Davila-Ross, Reader in Comparative Psychology, University of Portsmouth
This talk will be presented via Zoom.
Laughter and Smiles: Towards understanding the Complexity and Phylogenetic Continuity of Positive Communication in Hominids
Abstract: Laughter and smiles are arguably the strongest behavioural indicators of positive emotional states in humans and they also represent pervasive tools of social communication, help to develop and maintain social relationships, and affect individuals‘ health and wellbeing. It, thus, may not come to a surprise that these important behaviours are deeply rooted in human biology. More specifically, empirical research on hominids suggests that laughter and smiles are evolutionarily continuous, going back to at least the past 13 million years. As a result, an in-depth evaluation of laughter and smiles in great apes may provide a better understanding of why humans, a highly social-cognitive species, behave the way they do. This talk attempts to reconstruct the evolution of laughter and smiles in great apes and humans by assessing form and function of these expressions in their natural social interactions. Comparative and phylogenetic approaches are applied that include acoustic analyses, FACS (Facial Action Coding System) specifically designed to study great apes, and the coding of bodily actions.
Zoom link: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/94813693836?pwd=[REDACTED]
Zoom Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

Skill acquisition and life history: towards a better understanding of cognitive evolution - postponed till spring quarter
2022-11-28 12:00 - 13:30 | 352 Haines Hall
Dr. Caroline Schuppli, Max Planck Research Group leader, MPI for Animal Behavior
This talk will be presented via Zoom on some date yet to be determined in spring of 2023.
Skill acquisition and life history: towards a better understanding of cognitive evolution
Abstract: Cognitive capacity gets selected for via skills and abilities which provide individuals with fitness benefits. However, strikingly, the larger brained a species is, the more incompetent its infants are at birth and the more they must learn to become functioning adults. This suggests that especially for large-brained species, the developmental construction of intelligence critically depends on inputs during ontogeny. Therefore, to understand the evolution of cognition, we need to look at how skills and abilities develop in individuals. To shed light on these questions, we conduct long-term research on orangutans as well as look at broader patterns across species using comparative analyses. Our results suggest that that extended developmental periods during which skills can develop as well as learning mechanisms that allow for efficient skill acquisition are crucial for the evolution of high-level cognition.
Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92826436236?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

Cultural rescue: avoiding extinction with gene-culture coevolution. THIS TALK WILL BE RESCHEDULED FOR JUNE 5, 2023
2022-11-21 12:00 - 13:30 | 352 Haines Hall
Dr. Laurel Fogarty, Senior Scientist, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
This talk will be presented via Zoom.
Cultural rescue: avoiding extinction with gene-culture coevolution.
Abstract: It is often suggested that the adaptability and success of human populations is a direct result of our sophisticated cultural abilities. Previously, we have suggested that in cases where lethal environmental shifts cause population decline, culture may be able to rescue an otherwise doomed population — in other words cause a ‘cultural population rescue’. Innovation and cultural transmission together might provide behavioural adaptations that could compensate for the detrimental effect of an environmental change. To the extent that such innovations could spread and be maintained through cultural transmission, such a process could indefinitely compensate for novel harsh environmental conditions.
However, such a scenario may be rare and culture might do more. Organisms with large body sizes and long generation times, like humans, are not typically thought to be able to undergo true ‘evolutionary rescue’, where compensatory genetic mutations arise and allow the demographic recovery of a declining population. As a consequence of long waiting times for beneficial mutations, where generation times are long, and population sizes are relatively small, populations are overwhelmingly likely to die out before such mutations arise and spread to high frequency. We suggest that where culture does not lead to a direct ‘cultural rescue’, it might nevertheless slow population decline providing time in which compensatory genetic mutations may arise. This mechanism seems plausible. However, the key to understanding the importance of culture in human population survival lies in describing how frequently such culturally-facilitated evolutionary rescues could occur and under what circumstances they are plausible, likely, or impossible.
In this talk I will describe a mathematical model of evolutionary rescue that allows for direct gene-culture interactive effects on biological fitness, and examine the probability of population rescue in the presence and absence of culture.
Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92826436236?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

Female counterstrategies to infanticide in lactating gelada females: adaptive, but not cost-free
2022-11-07 12:00 - 13:30 | 352 Haines Hall
Dr. Amy Lu, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, Stony Brook University
This talk will be presented via Zoom.
Female counterstrategies to infanticide in lactating gelada females: adaptive, but not cost-free
Abstract: Adverse socioecological conditions can have pervasive effects on health and fitness. For mothers, adverse conditions can trigger cost-cutting strategies that limit investment in reproduction. These strategies can further impact the health and fitness of current and future offspring. Geladas are an ideal species in which to investigate the intersection between maternal and offspring responses to adversity. Gelada females reside in one-male units where a “leader” male has sole reproductive access to 2-13 adult females. Males without reproductive units must challenge and depose an existing leader to gain reproductive opportunities, and such “takeover” events are known to lead to infanticide, elevated glucocorticoids (GCs), and increased injury risk for all natal individuals within the group. Takeover risk also impacts gelada female reproductive physiology: immature females accelerate reproductive maturation, gestating mothers experience fetal loss (“Bruce effect”), and lactating mothers are suspected of producing immediate signals of fertility (sex skin swellings) that deter the likelihood of infanticide. Here, we draw on over 10 years of data from the Simien Mountains Gelada Research Project to examine the potential costs and benefits associated with this presumed strategy observed in lactating females. We found that lactating gelada females that experienced a takeover produced sex skin swellings earlier than those that did not. However, females with younger infants were less likely to produce such swellings and infant age at maternal swelling was correlated with the subsequent interbirth interval, suggesting that mothers that swell earlier divest in current offspring. Finally, infants that experienced a takeover were more likely to survive when mothers produced swellings, but also when they were simply older at takeover. Taken together, our results suggest that although the production of sex skin swellings by lactating females increases infant survival in geladas, they are not cost-free and may lead to downstream developmental consequences for infants. Furthermore, mothers of the youngest gelada infants are constrained: they are less able to produce swellings, yet their infants are more likely to die of infanticide.
Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92826436236?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

The Brain's Crescendo; How Music Training Impacts Child Development
2022-10-31 12:00 - 13:30 | 352 Haines Hall
Dr. Assal Habibi, Assoc. Professor of Psychology, University of Southern California
This speaker will be presenting in person.
The Brain’s Crescendo; How Music Training Impacts Child Development
Abstract: In an ongoing multi-year longitudinal study, we have been investigating the effects of a group-based music training program on development of children, beginning at age 6, using behavioral, neuroimaging and electrophysiological measures. The target group of children have been participating in the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles (YOLA) program. This music program is based on the Venezuelan system of musical training known as El-Sistema and offers free music instruction 6–7 hours weekly to children from underprivileged and under-resourced areas of Los Angeles. The children in the music program have been compared with two groups of children, one involved in a community-based sports program and another not enrolled in any systematic afterschool training. At the onset, we established that there were no pre-existing differences among the groups. Over the course of 5 years, we have observed that children in the music group had better performance than comparison groups in musically relevant auditory skills (pitch and rhythm discrimination) and showed an accelerated maturity of auditory processing as measured by cortical auditory evoked potentials. We also observed that children in the music group showed a different rate of cortical thickness maturation between the right and left posterior superior temporal gyrus and higher fractional anisotropy in the corpus callosum, specifically in the crossing pathways connecting superior frontal, sensory, and motor segments. For nonmusical skills, children with music training, compared with children without music training, showed stronger neural activation during a cognitive inhibition task in brain regions involved in response inhibition and decision making (bilateral pre-SMA/SMA, ACC, IFG). Finally, we observed that parents of children involved in music training, after four years, rated their children higher on the emotional stability personality trait and lower on aggression and on hyperactivity compared to children not involved in music activities despite no differences in these measures before children’s entry into the program. Considering a general reduction in art education specifically in the communities that there is limited access to art exposure in general, and specifically to music education, the findings from this study is providing compelling answers to the ongoing discussion about music’s role in the education curriculum.
Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92826436236?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

Growing up in a dynamic social world: early-life effects on behavior and neuroendocrine function
2022-10-24 12:00 - 13:30 | 352 Haines Hall
Dr. Tessa Solomon-Lane, Asst. Professor of Biology, Keck Science Dept., Claremont McKenna, Pitzer & Scripps Colleges
More info: https://tessasolomonlane.com/
This speaker will be presenting in person.
Growing up in a dynamic social world: early-life effects on behavior and neuroendocrine function
Abstract: Why, and how, do individuals behave the way they do? Social behavior has long captivated researchers from diverse fields. Social behavior is common to a remarkably wide range of species, its expression is complex and patterned, and it has deeply conserved effects on evolutionary fitness and health. Similarly, the neuroendocrine signaling pathways that regulate social behavior are also evolutionarily ancient. Early-life experiences are a powerful source of individual variation in adult behavior, yet fundamental questions remain about the development of social behavior and its underlying mechanisms. In my lab, we use the highly social Burton’s Mouthbrooder cichlid fish (Astatotilapia burtoni), a model system in social neuroscience, to investigate the social, behavioral, and neuroendocrine mechanisms regulating the development of social behavior. This species is known for the mixed-sex, hierarchical communities formed by adults, in which individuals express social behaviors common across vertebrates, such as aggression, affiliation, courtship, parenting, and cooperation. As is the case in primates, juveniles are social from the earliest life history stage. I will present the results of a series of experiments that demonstrate that juveniles form nuanced, complex social relationships, and how early-life social environments sculpt social behavior, nonapeptide signaling, and neuroendocrine stress axis function. I will discuss how this work expands our understanding of behavioral development and the origins of individual variation in adult phenotypes, from fish to humans
Zoom link: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/94813693836?pwd=[REDACTED]
Zoom Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

Laughter and Smiles: Towards understanding the Complexity and Phylogenetic Continuity of Positive Communication in Hominids
2022-10-17 12:00 - 13:30 | 352 Haines Hall

Aspects of competition and cooperation in the genus Pan
2022-10-03 12:00 - 13:30 | 352 Haines Hall
Dr. Martin Surbeck, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
This talk will be presented via Zoom.
Aspects of competition and cooperation in the genus Pan.
Abstract: I will talk about aspects of competition and cooperation in our closest living relatives, bonobos and chimpanzees. Firstly, I will explore how differences in female sexuality and male mate competition potentially contribute to observed species differences. There will be a specific focus on the role of mothers during mate competition in male philopatric species and I will speculate about potential implications for life histories. Secondly, I will explore aspects of between group competition in bonobos and discuss the implications of the new findings for the emergence of cooperative relationships between groups.
Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92826436236?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

Indigenous Data Lifecycles for Indigenous Futures
2022-09-26 12:00 - 13:30 | 352 Haines Hall
Dr. Keolu Fox, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, UCSD
This speaker will be presenting in person.
Indigenous Data Lifecycles for Indigenous Futures
Abstract: According to The Economist, in 2018 oil was the most-traded commodity in the world. But in 2019, the demand for oil had been surpassed by the demand for data, including digital sequence information (DSI) of genetic resources. Despite increasing enthusiasm for historically marginalized communities’ participation in biomedical research and a recognition of the potential for next-generation precision medicine, concerns around control and access of data derived from these populations remain. This lecture will highlight the emergence of new tools to enable equitable Indigenous data futures. Specifically it will explore key paths forward that are not only rooted in Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS), but circular economic systems, and place-based innovation. It will also highlight the potential for vertical integration and control of stacks of technology, including dynamic consent, data trusts, digital ledger systems, and cloud computation to empower Indigenous communities for generations to come.
Zoom link: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/94813693836?pwd=[REDACTED]
Zoom Meeting ID: 928 2643 6236
Passcode: BEC

Joe Manson - Nine years of research on life history strategy and individual differences, or: How I learned to start worrying about constructs and instruments
2022-05-31 15:00 - 17:00
This is a special BEC talk in honor of the retirement of one of BEC‘s core faculty members, Joe Manson. Please note the special time! Refreshments and snacks on the balcony of the anthropology department will follow Joe’s talk.

Dietrich Stout - The Evolution of Technology
2022-05-23 12:00 - 13:30
For better or worse, humans are now one of the major causal forces acting on the earth’s biosphere. Many would point to technology as the reason, but what exactly is technology? In this lecture, I will develop an evolutionarily grounded definition of technology that highlights three key features: material production, social collaboration, and cultural reproduction. Using examples from my own lab’s studies of stone tool making, I will argue that these features implicate a wide range of perceptual, motor, and cognitive capacities as well as multiple channels of cultural inheritance and biocultural evolutionary processes. This perspective blurs presumed distinctions between social and individual learning that have shaped formal modeling approaches to cultural evolution. In so doing it calls into question the idea that one key capacity, event, or evolutionary Rubicon initiated cumulative technological evolution and a pattern of sustained autocatalytic biocultural feedback in human evolution. This interpretation is consistent with growing paleoanthropological and archaeological evidence of the multi-lineal, intermittent, asynchronous course of human evolution, and presents a view of technological evolution as a complex and contingent process spanning a scale from neurons to societies and beyond. Nevertheless, some synthesis may be possible with respect to a smaller number of recurring processes and relationships. In this vein, I advance a “Perceptual Motor Hypothesis” proposing that human technological cognition has been evolutionarily and developmentally constructed from ancient primate perceptual-motor systems for body awareness and engagement with the world. Testing such hypotheses will require a multidisciplinary and comparative approach to identify patterned relations between contexts, mechanisms, and functions across diverse technological systems.

Richard Wrangham - Hunter-Gatherers, Homo duplex and the Evolution of Human Groupishness
2022-05-16 12:00 - 13:30
Groupishness is a tendency to commit prosocial acts for which the pathway to
compensatory fitness benefits is unpredictable. It is unique to humans, and its evolution is
not well understood. A difficulty is that the adaptive value of groupishness comes from
indirect reciprocity, which is hard to explain in societies that contain power asymmetries
such that a dominant can appropriate resources at will. To date the only solution is Boehm’s
proposal, namely that morality was favored because allied males were selected to use
coercive behavior first to eliminate tyrants, then subsequently to favor prosociality and
punish antisociality. Using information on self-domestication, a topic that Boehm did not
explore, I present several tests of Boehm’s thesis. All are supportive, while also modifying
Boehm’s ideas. I conclude that a major increase in evolved groupishness began with the
origin of Homo sapiens and the ability to execute tyrants. This process generated Homo
duplex, including the uniquely human tension between selfishness and duty seen in hunter-
gatherers and other societies.

Jaimie Krems - Tackling Friendship: Appraising, Finding, Getting, and Keeping Partners
2022-05-09 12:00 - 13:30
Friends have recurrently provided social, material, and emotional support—helping humans meet a range of recurrent challenges tributary to fitness. But friendships are not the first type of relationship that comes to mind when thinking about research in social psychology or evolutionary social science. Moreover, when friendships are the focus, work typically foregrounds the friendship dyad. Taking an evolutionary approach suggests a different natural ecology for friendship psychology—one that implies the challenges of friendship are more and more complex than we might typically consider them to be. Perhaps, then, the challenges one must solve to reap the benefits of friendship should be thought of not (only) as two-person games, so to speak, but (also) as n-person games. I illustrate this by exploring several major friendship challenges—identifying good friends, competing for friends, and maintaining friendships. I also propose and test some of the possible means by which our social minds might meet these challenges, toward ultimately maximizing the benefits and minimizing the costs of our sociality.
https://www.kremslab.com/

Sasha Kimel - Meatborne Xenophobia: Understanding When Disgust Fuels Outgroup Hate
2022-05-02 12:00 - 13:30
Given that animal-borne pathogens pose especially high disease risks and, moreover, that a growing body of research suggests that the evolved function of disgust is the avoidance of disease, it is largely unsurprising that the consumption of non-normative meat would evoke strong disgust reactions. Yet, it is largely unclear whether and when concerns about disease can also evoke negative reactions to third-parties who engage in such norm-violations. In a series of experiments, participants in the U.S. were randomly assigned to learn about cuisine from another culture (i.e., fabricated and real) that contained a meat that was either relatively neutral (i.e., beef), disgusting due to disease threat (i.e., rat) or disgusting due to a combination of disease threat and the immorality of causing a cared-for animal harm (i.e., dog, monkey). Our results suggest that disgust may only exacerbate negative judgements and behaviors towards third-parties when the disease threat also has a strong immorality component (e.g., eating of dogs but not rats) and, moreover, that this may increase depending on how cared-for the being is. Implications for theories on disgust, compassion and third-party punishment will be addressed.

Luke Premo - How Cultural Evolutionary Forces Affect Regional Variation in Structured Populations and the Archaeological Assemblages They Leave Behind
2022-04-25 12:00 - 23:30
Paleolithic archaeologists have employed expectations generated from models developed in evolutionary anthropology to aid in the investigation of the origins of high-fidelity cultural transmission. Based on the notion that copying error ought to yield high levels of between-group cultural variation under unbiased cultural transmission, archaeologists have interpreted ostensibly “lower-than-expected” levels of cultural variation among regional archaeological assemblages as evidence of widespread conformist biased transmission. But a closer inspection of cultural evolutionary theory suggests the expectation that unbiased transmission yields high between-group differentiation holds only for a narrow, idealized set of conditions that are likely to be violated in empirical cases. Additionally, it is unclear how or if this expectation translates to time-averaged assemblages of artifacts even under special conditions. I’ve developed a relatively simple agent-based model of cultural transmission in a structured population to improve our understanding of how cultural evolutionary forces affect between-group variation in a selectively neutral discrete trait under a wide range of conditions. My experimental design addresses how intergroup transmission and copying error affect regional cultural variation under four different mechanisms of cultural transmission (unbiased, vertical, conformist, or prestige biased) and two different models of copying error (finite or infinite variants). I quantify cultural differentiation not only between groups in a structured population but also between time-averaged assemblages of culture material. The results highlight three points: 1) there are many conditions—not just widespread conformity—in which one should expect relatively low variation among semi-, or even completely, isolated groups (and the archaeological assemblages they create through time) despite the effects of copying error, 2) the way in which intergroup transmission and copying error affect between-group (and between-assemblage) variation varies among cultural transmission mechanisms, and 3) time-averaging affects between-assemblage variation differently under different cultural transmission mechanisms. Considering these findings, I propose a list of questions one should answer before attempting to infer mechanisms of cultural transmission from time-averaged archaeological assemblages. Answers to these questions will help researchers better match expectations of regional cultural variation with the empirical case at hand.

https://anthro.wsu.edu/faculty-and-staff/luke-premo/

James Higham - Insights into Life-History from the Cayo Santiago Rhesus Macaques
2022-04-11 12:00 - 13:30
We humans come from a diverse order, the primates, which make excellent model systems for studying the interface between the biological and the social. In this talk, I focus on our long-running field studies of the rhesus macaques of Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico. Decades of individual-based demographic data allow us to explore variation in life history, including the impacts of interbirth intervals and infant birth weights on infant survival, and both the development and senescence of reproduction in the same individuals across the lifespan. Our studies leverage behavioral observations, cognitive experiments, physiological measures, genomic and transcriptomic data from blood and tissues, measurements of soft-tissues and skeletons, microbiome samples, and more. I show how long-term integrative study allows us to explore the interactions between the biological and the social from two perspectives: bottom-up and top-down. From the bottom-up perspective, we are beginning to ask how variation in the genome and epigenome, via the transcriptome, constructs cellular, tissue- and organ-level biology in individuals, and in turn, how individual-level behaviors structure societies and populations. From the top-down perspective, we study how variation in the social environment can get under the skin and impact health and disease. I finish by discussing the Anthropocene, and by demonstrating the top-down effects of climate change-linked natural disasters on rhesus macaque societies, and on individual health via effects on the transcriptome. Combining approaches from behavioral ecology, physiology, quantitative genetics, genomics and transcriptomics, computer vision, and comparative psychology, this talk is part demonstration of the value of integrative research, and part love-letter to long-term field studies.

Kelsey McCune - Space Use, Exploratory Behavior and Rapid Range Expansion in Great-Tailed Grackles
2022-04-04 12:00 - 13:30
Humans are rapidly changing the natural world, leading to decreasing native fauna and increasing non-native fauna. Problematic species range expansions are occurring across the globe, but not all species are able to become established outside of their original range. It is still unclear which characteristics facilitate successful invasions or native species persistence in human-modified environments. One hypothesis is that variation in behavior may be important when certain individuals possess traits that make them more likely to succeed when venturing into new habitats and outcompeting heterospecifics. For example, variation in the ability (movement) and motivation (exploratory tendency) to encounter conspecifics and novel food sources could facilitate range expansions. However, no previous research has compared measures of exploration to the natural movement behavior of individuals along the range of a currently invading species. In this talk I will discuss my research on movement and exploratory behaviors in a species that has rapidly expanded its range in the U.S., the great-tailed grackle. I consider whether individuals consistently differ in their movement behavior such that it can be considered an inherent individual trait, whether movement relates to performance on an exploration task, and whether movement and exploration differ between grackles in the center of the range and those on the invasion front. Invasive species are implicated as a leading cause of biodiversity loss, so this research will facilitate a better understanding of the importance of these behavioral characteristics in predicting potential invasions in other systems.

Lisa O'Bryan - Communication and the Coordination of Collective Behavior in Non-human and Human Social Groups
2022-03-28 12:00 - 13:30
Lisa O’Bryan, Rice University
In order to obtain social benefits, individuals must remain cohesive, coordinate their behavior, and collectively process information. The field of collective behavior focuses on understanding how group-wide properties such as these emerge from the interactions of many individuals. Most studies of collective behavior examine how coordination is achieved through visual cues about others’ positions and behavior. However, in many complex social and ecological environments, communication can be critical for achieving successful outcomes since many signals have evolved to advertise location, express motivational state and share information. My research focuses on how vocal communication both influences, and is influenced by, individual and group-wide properties, with the aim of better understanding the behavioral mechanisms underlying the successful (and unsuccessful) functioning of social groups. I study this topic using technology to obtain detailed, continuous measurements of individual behaviors and interactions in both non-human and human social groups. In this talk I will review my work using wearable dataloggers to study how vocalizations influence the collective movements of domesticated herds and wild baboons. I will also discuss current studies focused on the role conversational turn-taking plays in the decision-making and collective intelligence of human teams. The long-term goal of my research program is to gain new insights into the function and evolution of communication systems involved in the mediation of collective behaviors and how we can engineer communication systems within our own societies to produce more favorable group-wide outcomes.

Federico Rossano - Interacting like a human being: a developmental and comparative perspective on calibrating requests
2022-03-07 12:00 - 13:30
In his paper on the “human interaction engine”, Levinson famously asserted that, in social interaction, people’s responses “are to actions and intentions, not to behaviors” (2006: 45). Indeed human beings attribute intentions/goals to the production of signals and parsing other’s signals means simulating others’ mental worlds, at least to some degree. But how do speakers calibrate their interactional moves in first position so that they are more likely to elicit their preferred response? Which variables do they take into account?
In this talk I present observational and experimental data on how human (children and adults) and non-human primates (chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans) calibrate requests for actions and for objects. I will discuss the roles of prospection, entitlement and accountability in the calibration of requests and outline to what degree non-human primates share with humans cognitive abilities that allow for a flexible assessment of when, how and to whom to deliver requests. I will also show where the critical differences lie. In doing so, I will show what it means to interact like a human being.
Federico Rossano
UCSD Cognitive Science
https://cogsci.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/federico-rossano.html

Elizabeth Hobson - Dominance hierarchies, fight decisions, and social support as windows into animal social cognition
2022-02-28 12:00 - 13:30
Elizabeth Hobson
University of Cincinnati
http://hobsonresearch.com/

Helen Davis - Culture, Cultural Change, and Cognitive Development
2022-02-14 12:00 - 13:30
What does cognitive development look like in a world without schools or formally educated parents or communities? What if our most fundamental measures of cognitive performance were influenced by small amounts of schooling or by having parents, siblings or others who attended schools in one’s household or community? Growing evidence suggests that the human mind is shaped by the socially and culturally incentivized institutions it is exposed to during our unusually long childhood. Yet, many contemporary theories of early learning capacities and cognition are drawn from samples where formal schooling, a prolific cultural institution, has been nearly ubiquitous for at least a century. In such novel environments, the impact of formal schooling on cognition and learning can easily be confused with species-wide maturational processes. This talk will discuss research focused on fundamental aspects of cognition and the institutions and cultural transitions shaping them using findings from two unique, ongoing studies in Amazonia, Bolivia and in the Namib Desert of Namibia and Angola. Additionally, this talk will address growing challenges associated with cross-cultural research, as well as the need for a conscientious commitment to participant communities.
Helen Davis
Harvard University
https://helen-elizabeth-davis.com/

Chris Kelty & Jessica Lynch - Pouncing on opportunities: domestic/feral cat biology and global human-mediated cat niche expansion
2022-02-07 12:00 - 13:30
Why are cats everywhere? Grounded on research into the controversy around feral or community cats and ‘TNR’ (Trap, Neuter, Return) in Los Angeles, we posit that the modern domestic/feral cat has demonstrated abilities toward multidimensional “niche expansion” and “niche space saturation” that allow it to succeed and increase in population density through behavioral diversification, where other creatures (including its felid relatives) might not be able to. This niche expansion is also a story of human collaboration with cats throughout history, not just a story of human “domestication.” Niche expansion and collaboration allow us to think beyond the stories of human intentionality (at the heart of theories of domestication, as well as those of the “Anthropocene”) which overlook distinctive aspects of feline biological and evolutionary capacity, and overestimate human capacities for control.

Jenny Tung - The social genome and primate evolution
2022-01-31 12:00 - 13:30
Jenny Tung
Duke University
http://www.tung-lab.org/

Gerry Carter - Cooperative Relationships in Vampire Bats
2022-01-24 12:00 - 13:30
Several birds and mammals form affiliative relationships with both kin and nonkin that involve multiple forms of cooperation. When individuals form these long-term cooperative relationships, both the causes and consequences of each individual’s cooperative investments are difficult to study. To understand how individuals form and maintain cooperative relationships, one must ultimately manipulate both associations and interactions to experimentally test for predicted changes in relationship dynamics. In this talk, I will review what we have learned so far from 10 years of experiments with common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus). These blood-feeding vampire bats regurgitate food to help unfed bats in need, and these costly donations occur reciprocally among both related and unrelated adult females. My work to date suggests that such food sharing has origins in extended maternal care and kin selection, but now provides multiple kinds of direct and indirect fitness benefits through some combination of reciprocity and interdependence. New reciprocal food-sharing relationships form between strangers initially through escalating reciprocal allogrooming, and new allogrooming relationships can be experimentally “seeded” by forcing bats into close spatial proximity. A key concept is that the amount of fitness interdependence in social relationships can change continuously over time, blurring the lines between categorical models of cooperation such as reciprocity and ‘pseudo-reciprocity’.

Gerry Carter
Ohio State University
https://eeob.osu.edu/people/carter.1640
