title: Who Knows? Metacognitive Social Learning Strategies.
abstract: To make good use of learning from others (social learning), we need to learn from the right others; from agents who know better than we do. Research on social learning strategies (SLSs) has identified rules that focus social learning on the right agents, and has shown that the behaviour of many animals conforms to these rules. However, it has not asked what the rules are made of, that is, about the cognitive processes implementing SLSs. Here, I suggest that most SLSs depend on domain-general, sensorimotor processes. However, some SLSs have the characteristics tacitly ascribed to all of them. These metacognitive SLSs represent 'who knows' in a conscious, reportable way, and have the power to promote cultural evolution.
authors.affiliation: All Souls College, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 4AL, UK; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 4AL, UK. Electronic address: cecilia.heyes@all-souls.ox.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Cecilia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Heyes
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001244:Association; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D012919:Social Behavior; D000067570:Social Learning / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: cultural evolution; domain-general; metacognition; social learning strategies