Ability to share emotions of others as a foundation of social learning.

• Social learning is one of the most efficient strategies for adapting to the dynamically changing environment • Various forms of learning from others manifest themselves across different taxa of increasing biological complexity • The emotional states of others evoked by interactions with the environment are an essential ingredient of social information • Two critical factors impacting social learning are the pertinence of information for survival and the type of relationship. The natural habitats of most species are far from static, forcing animals to adapt to continuously changing conditions. Perhaps the most efficient strategy addressing this challenge consists of obtaining and acting upon pertinent information from others through social learning. We discuss how animals transfer information via social channels and what are the benefits of such exchanges, playing out on different levels, from theperception of socially delivered information to emotional sharing, manifesting themselves across different taxa of increasing biological complexity. We also discuss how social learning is influenced by different factors including pertinence of information for survival, the complexity of the environment, sex, genetic relatedness, and most notably, the relationship between interacting partners. The results appear to form a consistent picture once we shift our focus from emotional contagion as a prerequisite for empathy onto the role of shared emotions in providing vital information about the environment. From this point of view, we can propose approaches that are the most promising for further investigation of complex social phenomena, including learning from others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]