Dear BERGers, Today, Dr Bruce Rawlings (Durham University) is giving a seminar entitled "To copy or create: individual, group and species differences in imitation and innovation". Please see the abstract, and the link to the meeting, below. See you later! Abstract Cumulative cultural evolution (CCE), the improvement of cultural traits over generations via social transmission, is widely believed to be one of humans’ most defining characteristics. Our capacity to build upon others' knowledge, technologies, and skills has produced the most diverse and sophisticated technological repertoire in the animal kingdom. And while other animals such as chimpanzees display impressive cultural diversity, humans stand alone in the extent to which our culture is cumulative. Key to CCE is the interplay between innovation and imitation. Innovations generate new, improved behaviours and skills, while imitation allows for their uptake through social transmission. In my research, I study the individual, group, and species differences in innovative and imitative propensities. In this talk, I will discuss a series of experiments where I find differences and similarities across species in whether, and how, factors such as age, sex, personality, sociality, and flexibility predict children’s and chimpanzees’ propensity to engage in innovation and/or imitation. I will also discuss some ongoing work investigating the development of innovation and (over)imitation cross culturally, where we have collected data on around 1200 children in 14 international populations. Best wishes, Pawel BERG seminars: Date Time Speaker Affiliation Seminar title 13/04/2022 16:00 Bruce Rawlings Durham University TBC, cumulative culture 20/04/2022 16:00 Gema Martin-Ordas University of Stirling TBC, reporting p values in primate tool use research 27/04/2022 16:00 André Pereira University of Exeter TBC 04/05/2022 16:00 Laura Lewis Harvard University TBC, bonobo cognition 11/05/2022 16:00 Alexander Weiss University of Edinburgh TBC 18/05/2022 16:00 TBC 25/05/2022 16:00 Shelley Culpepper University of Stirling Interspecific Olfactory Perception of Human Emotions: From the Horses Perspective Link to the meeting: https://teams.microsoft.com/dl/launcher/launcher.html?url=%2F_%23%2Fl%2Fmee… ________________________________ The University achieved an overall 5 stars in the QS World University Rankings 2020 UK Sports University of the Year 2020 (Times Higher Good University Guide) The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159.