CES President’s Report & Annual General Meeting

**Abstract:**

Existing models of cumulative cultural evolution suggest that cultural complexity is facilitated by high-fidelity cultural transmission and demographic factors, such as population size. However, models and theory tend to neglect the role of asocial learning in the evolution of cumulative culture, unrealistically treating brains as passive receptacles of socially learned information that increase linearly in size and storage capacity as culture accumulates. Here we address this omission by combining artificial neural network simulations and agent-based models to provide a bottom-up mechanistic understanding of the computational capabilities that neural architectures acquire as they increase in size and alter in morphology. Our more realistic model of brain-culture coevolution generates a biologically feasible nonlinear relationship between brain size, neocortical modularity, and cultural cognition, resembling observed neurological differences between human and nonhuman primates. At optimal network modularity and over a critical size threshold, associative learning and inference give way to new capacities for recursive analogy parsing, generation of arbitrary symbolic associations, and an ability to recall and recombine ideas from uncorrelated domains of cultural knowledge without external cues. Including this within existing models of cumulative culture demonstrates that increasing cultural complexity depends upon recursive imagination, transmission fidelity and demography in equal measure.

**Speaker's social media:**

Twitter: @AseSergiou

RECORDING - The Role of brain size, neural architecture and recursive imagination in the evolution of cumulative culture

LIVE - The Role of Brain Size, Neural Architecture and Recursive Imagination in the Evolution of Cumulative Culture

A short welcome message and introduction made by Rachel Kendall and Alex Masoudi, current CES president. 

CES Presidential Address & Opening Remarks

In order to adaptively solve complex problems or make difficult decisions, people must strategically combine personal information acquired directly from experience (individual learning) and social information acquired from others (social learning). The game of football (soccer) provides extensive real world data with which to quantify this strategic information use. I analyse a 5-year dataset of all games (n = 9127, 2012–2017) in five top European leagues to quantify the extent to which a manager’s initial formation is guided by their personal past use or success with that formation, or other managers’ use or success with that formation. I focus on the 4231 formation, the dominant formation during this period. As predicted, a manager’s choice of whether to use 4231 is influenced by both their recent use of 4231 (personal information) and the use of 4231 in the entire population of managers in that division (social information). Against expectations, managers relied more on personal than social information, although this estimate was highly variable across managers and divisions. Finally, there did not appear to be an adaptive tradeoff between social and personal information use, with the relative reliance on each failing to predict managerial success.

Cultural evolution of football tactics: strategic social learning in managers’ choice of formation

Welcome to the Cultural Evolution Society (CES) Conference 2024, which was a hybrid conference held at Durham University (UK). The conference was hosted in Durham by the Durham Cultural Evolution Research Centre (DCERC) with administrative assistance from the CES Transformation Fund team.

**For more information about the CES Conference, please visit the [CES Website Home Page](https://ces2024.webspace.durham.ac.uk/).**

#### Durham Cultural Evolution Research Centre (DCERC) 
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
**Interdisciplinary study of cultural change and diversity**

We are a highly interdisciplinary group of researchers using evolutionary models to study cultural change and diversity. We apply cultural evolutionary methods to a wide variety of topics including cognition, innovation, social learning, technology, art, music, narrative, religion, sociality, language and communication. We have a growing interest in applying cultural evolutionary theory to current societal challenges such as understanding the spread of prosocial health behaviours and health conspiracies. 
**[Discover More](https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/cultural-evolution/)**

#### CES 2024 [Code of Conduct](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BDJcgi95_jDy7VOEu72wfSR83D5JtHSc/view?usp=sharing)

If you feel at any time you have been the victim of harassment or inappropriate behavior that contradicts our code of conduct, you may use the following form to report the incident. 

**[CES 2024 Code of Conduct Report Form](https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=i9hQcmhLKUW-RNWaLYpvlGWUgzc9C8FMnit5-H2U3oZURUpYRjI5TFM3RUhaRzVDT1o5UEs3M1oxUy4u)**

To access the site please register [**here**](https://ces2024.webspace.durham.ac.uk/registration-information/). 

Registration Is Required

Cultural Evolution Society Conference 2024

The field of cultural evolution is growing in size and scope; its theories, methods and applications - both academic and applied - are getting ever more robust. Do join us in what promises to be an exciting exchange of ideas and a celebration of our field.

Please note that for those who submitted a pre-recorded video, we have posted it along with a live recording.

Innovation & Creativity

technical paper

CES Presidential Address & Opening Remarks 

This session will be held in Zoom discussion room. Please click on the button below to join the session

[![](https://assets.underline.io/uploads/markdown_image/1/image/76394b5b28bf127a876eea792e512efa.png)](https://zoom.us/j/98947667128?pwd=YkpOZjRCemx3YU5ONDNVRkw0enFpQT09)

**Session Chair:** Lucy Margaret Aplin    
  
   
**Paper ID:** AB00100        
**Paper title:** Apparently complex re-combinative culture can arise from simple mechanisms in wild birds        
**Author:** Lucy Margaret Aplin      
**Time:** 15:10 - 15:20 (CEST)  

**Paper ID:** AB00194      
**Paper title:** Serial Reproduction of Narratives: Happiness and Sadness Survive While Coherence Suffers       
**Author:** Fritz Breithaupt       
**Time:** 15:20 - 15:30 (CEST) 

**Paper ID:** AB00073      
**Paper title:** Biases or balancing act? Investigating the flexibility of conformity      
**Author:** Aysha Bellamy        
**Time:** 15:30 - 15:40 (CEST) 

**Paper ID:** AB00087      
**Paper title:** Hybrid social learning in human-algorithm cultural transmission        
**Author:** Levin Brinkmann        
**Time:** 15:40 - 15:50 (CEST)  

**Paper ID:** AB00038       
**Paper title:** Cultural evolution of football tactics: strategic social learning in managers’ choice of formation       
**Author:** Alex Mesoudi       
**Time:** 15:50 - 16:00 (CEST)  

Q&A session 01: Social learning

### 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:**
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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:**

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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
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* 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

Alex Mesoudi

5

16

SHORT BIO

Presentations

CES President’s Report & Annual General Meeting

RECORDING - The Role of brain size, neural architecture and recursive imagination in the evolution of cumulative culture

LIVE - The Role of Brain Size, Neural Architecture and Recursive Imagination in the Evolution of Cumulative Culture

CES Presidential Address & Opening Remarks

Cultural evolution of football tactics: strategic social learning in managers’ choice of formation

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