The refinement paradox and cumulative cultural evolution: Complex products of collective improvement favor conformist outcomes, blind copying, and hyper-credulity.

Social learning is common in nature, yet cumulative culture (where knowledge and technology increase in complexity and diversity over time) appears restricted to humans. To understand why, we organized a computer tournament in which programmed entries specified when to learn new knowledge and when to refine (i.e. improve) existing knowledge. The tournament revealed a 'refinement paradox': refined behavior afforded higher payoffs as individuals converged on a small number of successful behavioral variants, but refining did not generally pay. Paradoxically, entries that refined only in certain conditions did best during behavioral improvement, while simple copying entries thrived when refinement levels were high. Cumulative cultural evolution may be rare in part because sophisticated strategies for improving knowledge and technology are initially advantageous, yet complex culture, once achieved, favors conformity, blind imitation and hyper-credulity. Author summary: Although social learning, culture, and traditions are found in animals, why humans seem to be the only species that builds on knowledge and technology over generations is still not fully understood. Here we organized a computer tournament in which programmed entries specified when to learn new knowledge and when to refine (i.e. improve upon) existing knowledge. We found a 'refinement paradox': while using refined behavior was beneficial to individuals, it was not beneficial to be the one doing the refining. Entries that refined selectively, only under limited conditions, did well while refinement levels increased, but once refinement was high simple entries that did not refine thrived. This result might explain why cumulative culture is rare in nature: sophisticated strategies for improving knowledge are initially advantageous, but once complex culture is common it pays to conform to the behavior of others and copy blindly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]