Culture: Copying, Compression, and Conventionality

Through cultural transmission, repeated learning by new individuals transforms cultural information, which tends to become increasingly compressible (Kirby, Cornish, & Smith, [Kirby, S., 2008]; Smith, Tamariz, & Kirby, [Smith, K., 2013]). Existing diffusion chain studies include in their design two processes that could be responsible for this tendency: learning (storing patterns in memory) and reproducing (producing the patterns again). This paper manipulates the presence of learning in a simple iterated drawing design experiment. We find that learning seems to be the causal factor behind the increase in compressibility observed in the transmitted information, while reproducing is a source of random heritable innovations. Only a theory invoking these two aspects of cultural learning will be able to explain human culture's fundamental balance between stability and innovation.