Chinese Journal of Nature ›› 2012, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (5): 291-293.

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New Advances in Study of Animal Behavior (Ⅴ): Cultural Transmission in Animals

SHANG Yu-chang   

  1. Professor, School of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China 
  • Received:2012-04-12 Revised:2012-05-12 Online:2012-10-25 Published:2012-10-25

Abstract: Cultural transmission is one of three foundations of studying animal behavior. Cultural transmission can allow newly acquired traits to spread through populations at a very quick rate, as well as permit the rapid transmission of information across generations. We shall examine three different modes of cultural transmission: vertical, horizontal and oblique transmission. Researchers found that across more than 100 species of primates, there was a significant positive correlation between brain size and both innovation and tooluse frequency.

Key words: cultural transmission, vertical, horizontal, oblique, brain size