This paper studies social interaction in newborns and of various species, whose behavioral developments attributed to the circular sensory motor Stage 3 of behavior development. The article has associated 16 exciting facts of the social behavior in groups of different species, highlighting three questions: (1) how can newborns successfully classify social phenomena that are abstract or absent from their reality; (2) whether emotional contagion can appear through cues of body language that subjects cannot consciously perceive; (3) how do organisms distinguish identical stimuli by their importance (value) without perceptual driver stimuli. The analysis suggests that organisms can interact at initial stages of development by distinguishing cues of a similar modality by their significance (their value). This ability contributes to the assimilation of knowledge about the initial social phenomena. This paper proposes the model of Coherent intelligence, which is strictly based on experimental evidence in modern literature and laws of physics.

Common Origins of Social Interaction of Different Species: The Model of Coherent Intelligence Linking Physics to Social Sciences

Conscious awareness to the events and stimuli around us is a central part of our everyday experience. Yet, are humans the only species that experiences conscious awareness? Since non-verbal species cannot report their internal states, philosophers and scientists have long debated whether the question of animal consciousness is empirically testable, and it still remains a topic of speculation (Dawkins, 2015; Gutfreund, 2017). In the large spectrum of views, some advocate that consciousness may require complex processes like language, a capacity that is unique to adult humans (Dennett, 1995) or a human-like theory of mind (Carruthers, 1998), which may extend to only a few selected species such as great apes (e.g., Krupenye, Kano, Hirata, Call, & Tomasello, 2016; but see Horschler, MacLean, & Santos, 2020). In contrast, others have used neuroanatomical similarities to argue that a number of species (including some birds and octopuses) are likely to be capable of generating conscious experience (see, for example, the Cambridge declaration on consciousness, 2012). Others argue that non-human animals are conscious on the basis of intelligent behaviors which, at least in humans, seem to coincide with conscious awareness as supporting evidence for animal consciousness. These include behaviors such as planning (Osvath & Osvath, 2008), or metacognition (Hampton, Engelberg, & Brady, 2020; Rosati & Santos, 2016), for review see Boly et al., 2013; Griffin & Speck, 2004. Yet, since many complex human behaviors and high-level functions can be performed outside of conscious awareness (i.e., Hassin, 2013), it is difficult to determine whether non-human animals that display intelligent behaviors are indeed conscious or not (Carruthers, 2018). Furthermore, given the ambiguity and difficulty in disentangling conscious from non-conscious processes in non-verbal species, many consider the question of animal consciousness as far from having been resolved (Dawkins, 2015; Gutfreund, 2017). For many, the gap in evidence needed to unambiguously infer animal consciousness is considered “as wide as ever” (Dawkins, 2012).

Unfolding Conscious Awareness from Non-Conscious Perception in Non-Human Animals

Commanded by culture: how decentralized cattle raids are organized

A feedback loop between human self-domestication and dog domestication contributing to language evolution?

Seeing nonhuman animals as cultural beings depends on perspectives and assumptions in theoretical frameworks and empirical methodologies. (Mis)recognizing animal culture comes down to what counts as teaching, imitation or cultural social transmission of information. My model of culture shifts the focus to social ontology.
Culture is a real social kind, meaning ‘culture’ can both do explanatory work and be explained in virtue of the causal and constitutive properties of social practices. Culture is dynamic meaning-making processes; ways of being wherein behaviours, objects, and places have salience/significance for social agents in virtue of their social practices (i.e., social meaning). Cultural phenomena are imbued with and carry information, knowledge and value that go beyond biological function and mere means to ends. I argue that some animals engage in meaning-making practices that are co-created, re-created (re)enacted, embedded, and transmitted in actions, interactions and relationships within social matrices; all of which constitutes culture.
At stake, is our epistemic access to animal culture and implications for conservation. How can we know there is social meaning? Heyes (2019) states we are a “long way from knowing how to integrate explanation and understanding, information and meaning, science and the humanities” (p.43). Inherent in her perspective are dichotomous relations of object(ive)/subject(ive). Consider information (objective) and meaning (subjective). Information is not a vacuous form awaiting content but rather meaning is always already immanent. Social information/meaning arises from intersubjectivity (even distally) and is always already objective/subjective. Epistemic access (explanation/understanding) requires science/humanities interaction to interrogate partial perspectives and situate objective knowledge.

Nonhuman Animal Culture: Meaning in Practice

The discovery of complex culture in different species is a major interest in cultural evolution research, with work so far uncovering evidence for cultural traits in some species of primates (e.g., baboon, chimps), whales (e.g., killer whales, humpback whales), and birds (e.g., Caledonian crow). Here, we offer a new animal model for studying culture evolution: The Elephant. Specifically, we present evidence that elephants possess many of the prerequisites associated with cultural evolution, including tool use, social learning, language, and complex community structure. For example, there is evidence of cultural learning in elephants, as they are able to acquire specific techniques for exploiting specific resource sites merely by observing conspecifics and by practicing and exploring new behaviors by themselves. Crucially, we argue that elephants have gone through a similar evolutionary process as humans - self-domestication - which is at the heart of our ability for cultural niche construction and the sophistication of language through cultural evolution. We use cross-species comparison and genetic analyses to show that elephants display the cognitive, behavioral, and physiological features that are associated with self-domestication, including changes in the brain, cortisol sensitivity to the social environment, reduced reactive aggression, and extended juvenile period. Moreover, elephants might stand as the only case of self-domestication outside the primate group, i.e., domestication that happened organically without human intervention. As such, it is a powerful model for investigating questions regarding language evolution and how convergent evolution of cultural learning can result in similar cognitive and communicative abilities.

Elephants as a new animal model of cultural evolution resulting from self-domestication

Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) are cetaceans with a worldwide distribution and a complex social structure. Sperm whales are members of cultural groups, called “vocal clans”. Members of a vocal clan have a distinctive suite of socially learned social calls, and do not associate with individuals from other vocal clans. However, whether vocal clan membership has implications beyond the use of a characteristic acoustic repertoire had never been tested in the Caribbean. Via a dedicated survey of sperm whales in the Lesser Antilles, we observed stark differences in vocal clan distributions across relatively small distances (<100km), with little to no overlap between them. These differences in distribution appear to relate to environmental variables with one vocal clan preferring island channels and areas of high eastward current speed and the other preferring canyons with low meridional velocity variance. Such fine-scale habitat partitioning is surprising for a species which is often referred to as an “ocean nomad” and contrasts with Eastern Tropical Pacific clans, which share habitats over much greater scales (we observe a factor of 10 difference between the movements of Eastern Caribbean and Eastern Tropical Pacific sperm whales). We hypothesize that Eastern Caribbean sperm whales are habitat specialists, with vocal clans specializing on the use of certain environmental features and maintaining this specialization through social learning. This not only highlights the need to incorporate culture in the field of conservation management, as different cultural groups have different distributions and habitat use, but also the inherent ties between culture and the environment.

Culture impacts the distribution and habitat use of sperm whales in the Eastern Caribbean

The existence of sharp stone tools is sometimes used as evidence for early cultural evolution in hominins. Yet, it is an open question whether these tools required cultural transmission of their underlying know-how. The main, but previously untested, alternative is that the know-how underlying these tools was the outcome of biologically evolved abilities (adaptations/exaptations). Here we tested – for the first time – whether non-human great apes may be spontaneously able to innovate the neccessary know-how to produce and use sharp stone tools. This required us to test apes in the absence of human enculturation and in the absence of human know-how demonstrations. Eleven chimpanzees were tested in this way. All proved motivated to engage in the tasks given, but not a single chimpanzee spontaneously made or used sharp stone tools. Our results stand in sharp contrast to the positive outcomes of earlier ape sharp stone tool experiments. However, all three apes that were previously tested (one orangutan and two bonobos) had received both human enculturation and human know-how demonstrations prior to their test (even active moulding of actions was sometimes applied). Human enculturation and/or human know-how demonstrations may thus be necessary before apes acquire sharp stone tool abilities. This would suggests that sharp stone tool manufacture and use has evolved – culturally and/or biologically – in the hominin lineage after the split between Homo and Pan.

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Common Origins of Social Interaction of Different Species: The Model of Coherent Intelligence Linking Physics to Social Sciences

Unfolding Conscious Awareness from Non-Conscious Perception in Non-Human Animals

Commanded by culture: how decentralized cattle raids are organized

A feedback loop between human self-domestication and dog domestication contributing to language evolution?

Nonhuman Animal Culture: Meaning in Practice

Elephants as a new animal model of cultural evolution resulting from self-domestication

Culture impacts the distribution and habitat use of sperm whales in the Eastern Caribbean

Unenculturated chimpanzees fail to produce and use sharp stone tools in the absence of know-how demonstrations

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