ArticleScientific reports2019
Development of social learning and play in BaYaka hunter-gatherers of Congo.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed.
- Maternal ranging strategies facilitate offspring social play at energetic cost in the most solitary ape.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Small hands, big ideas: exploring nurturing care through Beatrice Alemagna's 'What is a Child?'Medical humanities · 2026Article
- Parental perspectives on children's social learning in four cultures.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Article
- Social tolerance and role model diversity increase tool use learning opportunities across chimpanzee ontogeny.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Patterns of physical activity in hunter-gatherer children compared with US and UK children.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Object play in Tsimane children: implications for sex-specific division of labour.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Children adjust behavior in novel social environment to reflect local prosocial norms inferred from brief exposure.PloS one · 2025Article
- Half a century of quantitative cultural evolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Cultural transmission among hunter-gatherers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Hunter-Gatherer children's close-proximity networks: Similarities and differences with cooperative and communal breeding systems.Evolutionary human sciences · 2024Article
- Preverbal infants produce more protophones with artificial objects compared to natural objects.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Human cooperation and evolutionary transitions in individuality.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- The cultural evolution of teaching.Evolutionary human sciences · 2023Review
- Music production and its role in coalition signaling during foraging contexts in a hunter-gatherer society.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Cooperation and partner choice among Agta hunter-gatherer children: An evolutionary developmental perspective.PloS one · 2023Article
- Socioecology shapes child and adolescent time allocation in twelve hunter-gatherer and mixed-subsistence forager societies.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Costly teaching contributes to the acquisition of spear hunting skill among BaYaka forager adolescents.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Observational
- The origins of human cumulative culture: from the foraging niche to collective intelligence.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
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6 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
High-fidelity transmission of information through imitation and teaching has been proposed as necessary for cumulative cultural evolution. Yet, it is unclear when and for which knowledge domains children employ different social learning processes. This paper explores the development of social learning processes and play in BaYaka hunter-gatherer children by analysing video recordings and time budgets of children from early infancy to adolescence. From infancy to early childhood, hunter-gatherer children learn mainly by imitating and observing others' activities. From early childhood, learning occurs mainly in playgroups and through practice. Throughout childhood boys engage in play more often than girls whereas girls start foraging wild plants from early childhood and spend more time in domestic activities and childcare. Sex differences in play reflect the emergence of sexual division of labour and the play-work transition occurring earlier for girls. Consistent with theoretical models, teaching occurs for skills/knowledge that cannot be transmitted with high fidelity through other social learning processes such as the acquisition of abstract information e.g. social norms. Whereas, observational and imitative learning occur for the transmission of visually transparent skills such as tool use, foraging, and cooking. These results suggest that coevolutionary relationships between human sociality, language and teaching have likely been fundamental in the emergence of human cumulative culture.
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