 Humans are unique in their sophisticated culture and diverse societal structures, their complex languages, and their extensive use of tools. According to the human self-domestication hypothesis, this unique set of traits may be the result of an evolutionary process of self-induced domestication, in which humans have evolved to be less aggressive and more cooperative. Notably, the only other species that has been argued to be self-domesticated besides humans so far is bonobos, resulting in a narrow scope for investigating this theory beyond the primate family. Here, we propose a new animal model for studying self-domestication: the elephant. First, we support our hypothesis with an extensive cross-species comparison which suggests that elephants indeed exhibit many of the features associated with self-domestication (e.g., reduced aggression, increased prosocial behavior, extended juvenile period, increased play behavior, socially regulated cortisol levels and complex vocal behavior). Next, we present novel genetic evidence to reinforce our proposal, showing that genes positively selected in elephants are enriched in pathways associated with domestication traits and include several candidate genes previously associated with domestication. Together, our findings underpin the idea that elephants, like humans and bonobos, may have been self-domesticated.

Self-domestication in non-human species: elephants as a case study

Swarm Robotics, which studies collective behaviors of large populations of interacting robots with simple embodied cognition, is an ideal testbed for studying the cultural evolution of language. Our goal is to expand existing simulations in order to explore a dominant theory in evolutionary linguistics—the self-domestication hypothesis—which suggests that increased prosociality led to the sophistication of the cultural niche, enabling the complexification of languages. In our model, robots in multiple nests are engaged in a foraging task (i.e., gathering resources in their environment) while playing a language game. Crucially, we include two novel features: (1) robot individuation: robots have a partner-specific memory, keeping track of the outcomes of past interactions with specific robots; (2) parameterizable prosociality: robots’ tendency to interact is based on experience: successful communication between robots reduces their aggression toward each other and increases their chances of interacting again. First, we show that these manipulations lead to the formation of a classic “in-group bias” where robots favor interaction with some robots over others - a bias which is highly common in social animals in nature but that was so far absent from swarm robotics models. Second, we show that prosociality provides an evolutionary advantage, with higher prosociality values resulting in the collection of more resources. Finally, we show that prosociality modulates the effect of physical distance on lexical convergence, such that low values of innate prosocially lead to more stable sub-swarm divergence, even in relative proximity (i.e., different nests robustly converge on different lexical variants despite being close to each other).

First Steps Toward a Swarm Robotics Model of Self-Domestication and Language Evolution

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

Self-domestication and prosociality in the service of cultural evolution

technical paper

### Welcome to the fourth Cultural Evolution Society Conference, CES2022! 

As last year, Underline will support the online component of the conference. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is causing a great deal of uncertainty for all of us. Therefore, we seek to offer a hybrid format that will hopefully allow some folks to travel to Aarhus, others to meet up locally or regionally in CES hub-lets, and other yet to participate online. 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.

##### ***For SoMe interaction and live tweeting please tag @CulturalEvolSoc and use #CESconf2022***


#### The CES 2022 local organising committee
* Luseadra Joy McKerracher
* Jesper Sørensen 
* Niels Nørkjær Johannsen 
* Benjamin Grant Purzycki 
* Mette Løvschal 
* Felix Riede
* Iza Romanowska 
* Karsten Olsen

Please click on the button bellow if you want to watch the videos

Cultural Evolution Society 2022

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.



[![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/pf-upload-01/u-59356/0/2021-09-18/me23j72/button_workshop-website.png)](https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~pparth2/nilli_workshop//) 

W4: Novel Ideas in Learning-to-Learn through Interaction

workshop paper

EMNLP 2021 is planned to be a hybrid event in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, with both on-site and fully virtual participation possible. The experience for on-site participants would closely approximate a normal pre-COVID *ACL conference, with 5-6 thematically organized parallel sessions and live Q/A and interactive discussion immediately after the talks. Presentations by virtual participants will be equitably interleaved with those of on-site participants, projected on the auditorium screens as if on-site, and also followed immediately by live Q/A and interactive discussion at a time during reasonable waking hours for the virtual presenter. For all participants, on-site and virtual, who are unable to attend a session due to either time-zone issues or because they are participating in another session live, talk recordings and slides will be available online at a minimum after the live presentation (and in many cases before as well), and questions may be submitted in advance on session-specific discussion boards and answered live in session with the usual visual aids if desired.

<iframe style="width:700px;height:400px" src="https://online.fliphtml5.com/ebtyf/ceby/" seamless="seamless" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="true" ></iframe>

Please Note: The EMNLP registration system is not currently connected to the underline site as we are still in the process of building out EMNLP 2021. You will receive access instructions from underline the week of November 1st. 

Access is given only to EMNLP upon registration, if you have not registered please do so [here](https://2021.emnlp.org/registration).

Registered attendees will receive access the week of November 1st.

EMNLP 2021

EMNLP 2021 is planned to be a hybrid event in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, with both on-site and fully virtual participation possible.

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/94446509526?pwd=UGhKekhKaG1mM3ZHNkR1RS96VEdSZz09)

**Session Chair:** Limor  Raviv   
  
   
**Paper ID:** AB00049        
**Paper title:** Elephants as a new animal model of cultural evolution resulting from self-domestication          
**Author:** Rachel Harrison      
**Time:** 16:10 - 16:20 (CEST)  

**Paper ID:** AB00099     
**Paper title:** Can apes ape? What about with the addition of biases?  
**Author:** Damien Lee Neadle     
**Time:** 16:20 - 16:30 (CEST)

**Paper ID:** AB00083      
**Paper title:** Field experiments illuminate three phases of social learning in a wild primate     
**Author:** Erica van de Waal     
**Time:** 16:30 - 16:40 (CEST) 

**Paper ID:** AB00154     
**Paper title:** The diversity of animal culture across community structures     
**Author:** Jennifer Allen     
**Time:** 16:40 - 16:50 (CEST)  

**Paper ID:** AB00097    
**Paper title:** Are emotions a Rubicon or a bridge between non-human and human cultural learning?     
**Author:** Thibaud Gruber      
**Time:** 16:50 - 17:00 (CEST)  

Q&A session 26: Non-human culture 3

### 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

Limor Raviv

3

3

SHORT BIO

Presentations

Self-domestication in non-human species: elephants as a case study

First Steps Toward a Swarm Robotics Model of Self-Domestication and Language Evolution

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

Stay up to date with the latest Underline news!

PRESENTATIONS

CONFERENCES

COMPANY

RESOURCES