Japan

Cultural Evolution Society 2021

Variation is the universal: Making cultural evolution work in developmental psychology

### Conference Welcome

Welcome to the third Cultural Evolution Society Conference, CES2021. In the conference, which will be held from June 9-11, 2021, about 180 researchers from East Asia, Oceania, Middle East, Europe, North and South America give presentations on their latest research advancing the evolutionary understanding of human and nonhuman animal culture.

### Schedule and Program

[![](https://assets.underline.io/uploads/markdown_image/1/image/1ef06ffd05f80957b4a5b685f63ee3ba.png)](https://www.chain.hokudai.ac.jp/CES2020/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/fullprogram.pdf)
[![](https://assets.underline.io/uploads/markdown_image/1/image/12285eb22580949635121d15d5b46325.png)](https://www.chain.hokudai.ac.jp/CES2020/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/abstracts.pdf)

**Program-at-glance**

![](https://assets.underline.io/uploads/markdown_image/1/image/c0d0d4c8fcdad49d12631574fd966ae8.png)

### About the conference 
 
**Help-desk:** 
Please first visit [Help-desk](https://underline.io/events/120/help-desk) where you can find the instructions and manuals for exploring the conference site. 

**Plenary sessions:**
Five leading researchers give a live talk. It is like a TV show. The audience can submit a question from the chat window. Chat messages are immediately delivered to speakers and moderators.

**Q&A sessions (parallel):**
Each presenter first gives a 2-minute live lightning talk followed by an 8-minute live discussion with the audience. It uses Zoom.

**Discussion sessions:** 
The audience can approach presenters and discuss their research. The sessions are held in a dedicated room in Gathertown.
 
**Gathertown:**
It is a platform dedicated to live virtual interactions.
Gather Town is available for all participants 24 hours during the conference.
You can meet and talk with anybody at a lounge or at a table in Gathertown.
Further Gather Town instruction and how to use short keys please find in our [Help desk page](https://underline.io/events/120/help-desk). 

**Videos and slides:**

* Plenary sessions and the Q&A sessions will be recorded and uploaded after the sessions.
* All the videos and slides are available for 60 days after the conference but only to registered ones. 

**Text-based chatting with the speakers:** 
You can chat with any speaker in the Q&A and discussion sessions. A chat window is available on each speaker’s page, and you can leave your questions there. 

**Announcement to the other participants:**
If you want to make an announcement to the other participants (e.g., “Hey, let’s meet at the lounge in Gathertown from 9pm CEST!), please use twitter (#CESConf2021).



### Code of conduct

See the full details of [the code of conduct](https://www.chain.hokudai.ac.jp/CES2020/code-of-conduct/).
&nbsp; 
 CES is dedicated to providing a welcoming and harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion, nationality, or the presence of or care for dependents. 
We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Conference participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference at the discretion of the conference organizers.

&nbsp;
**Harassment can occur in-person or virtually, and includes, but is not limited to:**
* Comments (verbal, text, etc.) that reinforce social structures of domination related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion, nationality
* Sexual images in public spaces (physical or virtual)
* Deliberate intimidation, stalking, or following
* Harassing photography or recording (including sharing of presentation materials without consent)
* Sustained disruption of talks or other events (including “Zoombombing”)
* Inappropriate physical contact or unwelcome sexual attention
* Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behaviour 

&nbsp;
 **Inclusiveness Committee**:
&nbsp;
 To facilitate implementing the code of conduct and foster a climate of inclusion, we have developed an inclusiveness committee. Below is their contact information:
 **Hiromi Matsumae**:	matsumae.hiromi.g@tokai.ac.jp
 **Patrick Savage**:	psavage@sfc.keio.ac.jp
 **Sarah Mathew**:	Sarah.Mathew@asu.edu
 **Gmail:** inclusivenessCES2021@gmail.com
 See [more details about reporting the harassment.](https://www.chain.hokudai.ac.jp/CES2020/code-of-conduct/)

### Organizing committee

**Honorary Conference Organizer:** [Kenichi Aoki (Meiji University)](https://sites.google.com/site/kenichi1aoki/home) 

**Chair:** [Masanori Takezawa (Hokkaido University)](https://lalalarakko.github.io)

**Scientific Committee:** [Kenichi Aoki (Meiji University)](https://sites.google.com/site/kenichi1aoki/home), [Yasuo Ihara (the University of Tokyo)](https://researchmap.jp/read0209180?lang=en), [Hiromi Matsumae (Tokai University)](https://sites.google.com/site/hiromimatsumae/eng), [Naoko Matsumoto (Okayama University)](https://researchmap.jp/nmatsumoto_okayama-u), [Masako Myowa (Kyoto University)](https://myowa.educ.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en), [Hisashi Nakao (Nanzan University)](https://www.hisashinakao.com/), [Patrick E. Savage (Keio University)](https://sites.google.com/view/comp-music-lab/home)

**Local Organizing Committee:** [Yutaka Horita (Teikyo University)](https://sites.google.com/site/yhoritapage/), [Masanori Takezawa (Hokkaido University)](https://lalalarakko.github.io/), [Ayaka Takimoto (Hokkaido University)](https://lynx.let.hokudai.ac.jp/~takimoto/), [Kohei Tamura (Tohoku University)](https://researchmap.jp/7000017854)

**Inclusiveness Committee:** [Sarah Mathew (Arizona State University)](https://www.sarahmathew.net/), [Hiromi Matsumae (Tokai University)](https://sites.google.com/site/hiromimatsumae/eng), [Patrick E. Savage (Keio University)](https://sites.google.com/view/comp-music-lab/home)


![](https://assets.underline.io/uploads/markdown_image/1/image/967110a00d200a6b20d6f4fa6556ba13.png)

For attending the conference, you first need to register and pay fees from [the link here](https://www.chain.hokudai.ac.jp/CES2020/registration/). After the payment of the registration fees, you will receive a ticket, which is necessary for accessing the conference site. After the payment of the registration fees, you will receive a ticket, which is necessary for accessing the conference site

Registration fee

technical paper

What led to the evolution of theories and models across various scientific fields, and how do these arguments and paradigms frame their historical trajectory? One (unsatisfying) answer is that each field has its own personalities and historical context, generating a large number of potential trajectories in the process. By contrast, the notion of history converges on the same answer due to the universality of certain truths also raises more questions than answers. 

To understand how these trajectories form and sustain over decades or even centuries, an agent-based model of intellectual cultural evolution will be proposed. At the level of individual agents, cultural evolution is characterized using a dual inheritance model: mentor-mentee transmission (genealogical) and peer-to-peer transmission (sociocultural learning). We also advocate for combining phylogenetic approaches to genealogy with cybernetic models of sociocultural learning. Common ancestral fields diverge over time as subfields form and become epistemically isolated. When ideas are constrained by field-specific boundaries, we can observe linguistic and even semantic divergence. Reintegration of genealogical branches (reticulations) are also useful in understanding how ideas are shared between fields. Collaborations and interactions resulting from sociocultural learning will produce reticulating cycles amongst our phylogenetic branching relationships. 

In this way, we demonstrate that future trajectories can be approximated as a series of divergence and regulatory events. Our approach can be more broadly applied to the phenomenology of evolution. More generally, we can attach each level of inheritance to levels of evolutionary description: nonlinear regulatory processes being the proximal description, and tree structures serving as the ultimate description. These insights may also help illuminate unexplored areas within the map of possible evolutionary paths.

Charting the Future of Academic Fields with Cultural Evolutionary Trajectories

Presented is a force-based alternative to the transmission-based model of cultural evolution. The premise is that the majority of cultural evolution is Darwinian selection that occurs in the mind. The selection is driven by internal and external stressors (forces) leading to creative tension. Transmission is viewed as a source of variation and stressors, not heredity. 

One barrier to a force-view of cultural evolution is that biological evolution has not served as a helpful exemplar. The forces in natural selection are traditionally misidentified (or ignored). Here the forces of natural selection are environmental stressors acting on individuals, not natural selection itself. With this understanding, I will present the cultural evolutionary analogs to the dimensions of biological evolution including phenotype, variation, heredity, driving forces, fitness, and generations.

The impetus for this view of cultural evolution comes from the study of strategy and innovation developed in part during my 25 years at E.I. DuPont, the multinational chemical and materials company. In addition to my scientific role there, I held positions in business, venture management and strategic planning. 

I will show how the force-based model aligns with an adaptive view of strategy theory and practice. Understanding how stressors act on ideas, processes, and technologies is key to enabling innovation in all endeavors.

A Force-based Model of Cultural Evolution with Application to Business Strategy

Why do people choose to follow a demanding moral authority even in situations in which a less demanding alternative exists? Can social imitation alone sustain meaningful moral equilibrium? Why is moral authority concentrated in the sense that multiple individuals follow the same authority? What factors underpin and limit the power of moral authorities, and why do authorities lose influence? This paper addresses these questions by developing a formal choice-theoretic model of moral authorities, moral standards, and moral behavior. We show that sustaining meaningful moral behavior is only possible if some actors choose to provide, and others choose to follow, a person providing moral guidance through their behavior. Our theory builds on literature in cultural evolution, biology, and psychology on how human pro-sociality has become an adaptive trait. In an extension of our model, we analyze the role of the state. We show that only two types of states can maximize social welfare: morally liberal states with low redistribution, or, morally conservative states with high redistribution.

A Theory of Moral Authority: Moral Choices Under Moral Network Externality

Researchers hypothesize that we have an evolved partner choice psychology that tracks the cooperative reputations of others and compete for access to cooperative partners, such as by sharing more with cooperative partners. However, recent models and evidence suggest cultural institutions shape this partner choice psychology, questioning its universality. We test the universality of a preference for more cooperative partners in the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania. Ninety-two Hadza ranked eight of their campmates on generosity and foraging ability and then played a game in which they could direct finite resources to those campmates. We found that Hadza with greater exposure to other cultures, such as via schooling or participating in the market economy, shared more preferentially with campmates they ranked higher on generosity, whereas Hadza with lower exposure showed no preference to sharing with generous campmates. However, this moderating effect was specific to generosity—regardless of exposure, Hadza did not share more preferentially with campmates ranked higher on foraging ability. These results suggest that cultural institutions can shape Hadza partner choice psychology and that preference for more generous and cooperative partners is a product of cultural, rather than genetic, evolution.

Hadza hunter-gatherers with greater exposure to other cultures preferentially share with generous campmates

Gossip is essential to sustaining cooperation through indirect reciprocity, but it is unclear if and how individuals obtain accurate information through gossip. We examine how information acquired through hearsay influences cooperative decisions in warfare among the Turkana, a politically uncentralized semi-nomadic pastoral population in Kenya. The Turkana engage in cattle raids against neighboring groups in which there is a substantial risk of injury or death. Using vignettes and surveys with 63 Turkana warriors, we obtained information regarding warriors' ratings of the qualities of other warriors, norms about information sharing over different social scales (from kin level to the cultural group at large), the level of consensus in reputation, and real-world instances of decision making in warfare based on gossip. The results indicate that 1) a warrior’s reputation is associated with altruistic bravery, leadership, and combat skill; 2) there are norms regulating sharing other warrior’s reputations; and 3) warriors actively assess reputation when determining who to cooperate with. The findings suggest norms may play a role in making gossip sufficiently accurate, thus facilitating indirect reciprocity as a mechanism of human cooperation.

How gossip and reputation shape high-stakes cooperative decisions among Turkana warriors

This work analyzes the evolutionary diversification of the lanceolate points of the South Central Andes focusing on the pace and the patterns of this evolutionary radiation. Through phylogenetic reconstruction and by analyzing the time series of innovation, extinction, and taxonomic diversity we show that the divergence process began around 9500 cal BP and extended to 5000 cal BP. We distinguish a first instance with a greater diversity of points, a higher rate of innovation and less class longevity. These trends progressively stabilized, giving rise to an inverse pattern of less innovation, decreasing taxa diversity and greater class longevity. Also, we documented a progressive reduction in the length and the increase in the width of the points. We suggest that the adoption of new prey hunting tactics, since the end of the early Holocene, and the evolution of new weapon systems gave rise to an adaptive environment that favored the selective evolution of innovations in projectile points to fill different technological niches. The adaptive radiation of the lanceolate points contributed to more diverse weaponry that increased the chances of successful hunting in a greater diversity of contexts, allowing humans to specialize in camelid hunting.

Evolutionary Radiation of Mid-holocene Lanceolate Points From the Highlands of the South Central Andes

Angelica and sorrel salad? Ethnobotanical, historical, archaeological, and linguistic evidence for Viking-Age plant use

The paper attempts to contribute to an ongoing debate in the cognitive science of religion and cultural evolution concerning factors responsible for the emergence of moralizing religions. Scholars propose either social complexity or economic prosperity as the key forces in these cultural processes and often refer to the religious history of the ancient Mediterranean in their arguments. In this paper, we mainly explore the so called Affluence Hypothesis, which suggests that the emergence of moralizing religions was caused by shifts in life-history strategies in response to the increase in economic prosperity. We evaluate this hypothesis by analyzing economic, demographic and religious dynamics of the ancient Mediterranean. In particular, we employ the methods of Distributional Semantic Modeling to analyze temporal trends in moralizing religions motifs in a large corpus of ancient Greek texts and compare these trends with the dynamics of social complexity and economic prosperity as captured by various archaeological proxies.

Social Complexity, Affluence, and the Emergence of Moralizing Gods in the Ancient Mediterranean

Obtaining reliable, musically interpretable representations of sound in standardized notation is essential for cross-cultural analysis of the cultural evolution of music. However, musical transcription is usually conducted manually by ear, which is time-consuming and subjective, and its reliability for non-Western songs is largely unknown. In this study, we examine the reliability of 3 human and 10 automated transcriptions of 32 song excerpts from diverse cultures around the world taken from the Natural History of Song dataset (Mehr et al. 2019) and the Cantometrics songs dataset (theglobaljukebox.org; cf. Wood et al., this conference). The degree of agreement is evaluated by comparing pairs of human-human and human-machine transcriptions. We found that human transcription can be sufficiently reliable (κ ~.6-.9, ~80-90% agreement), but current state-of-the-art automated methods are not (κ <.4, <60% agreement). No automated method clearly outperformed others. As the agreement between human transcriptions could reach much higher agreement than the pairs of human and machine transcriptions, there is still room for improvement in developing the computational tools for analyzing the pitch structure of traditional music. Reliable automatic music transcription methods can broaden the scope of cross-cultural analysis of music, which is challenging to tackle with conventional manual transcription. Establishing objective, reliable methods for cross-cultural music transcription is critical for diversifying studies of the cultural evolution of music.

Reliability of Human and Automated Transcriptions of Global Songs


Musical scales, defined as a set of discrete pitches from which melodies are constructed, are one of the most universal features of music. Some important analogies can be drawn between the evolution of scales and biological evolution: they both entail evolution of a linear sequence of discrete units; their study is focused on extant species; they exhibit large variations in mutation rates (e.g. vocal scales vs. metallophone scales). In comparison to the seemingly infinite space of biological sequences, however, the space of possible scales (typically 7 or fewer notes, just-noticeable-differences of at least ~5 cents) is comparatively tiny; and little is known the relative effects of drift and selection in scales. Despite these properties of scales, quantitative studies of the evolution of scales are scant.

To study of the evolution of scales, we first create a sample of extant scales, by scouring the ethnomusicological literature of the last century to assemble a cross-cultural database of scales. This allows us to first consider the ‘drift’ forces inherent due to imperfections in both vocal production, and pitch perception. We then consider a set of selection biases, and test which hypotheses may best predict the distributions of extant scales. Finally, we think about how the different forces (physical, perceptual, cultural) involved in drift and selection, in comparison to biological evolution, may vary considerably across populations and histories in what sometimes may appear an arbitrary fashion.

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Variation is the universal: Making cultural evolution work in developmental psychology

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