Research
I have worked with laboratory populations of fish (guppies, mollies and sticklebacks), captive (callitrichids, capuchins, lemurs, chimpanzees, Barbary macaques) and wild (lemurs, capuchins) nonhuman primates, as well as children in schools and science centres. Much of my experimental work involves posing individuals with novel puzzle boxes or 'artificial fruits' from which they have to extract rewards either by working it out for themselves (asocial learning) or observing others (social learning). My approach emphasizes the importance of maintaining ecological validity, the integration of empirical and theoretical work and applications to societal issues and public engagement.
I focus my research in several areas which are outlined below, along with selected references and resources. Please see Publications for the full list of my research articles, book chapters and edited special issues. Also see Google Scholar & Research Gate
Developing methods to identify traditions in the wild
Although there are well established, sophisticated methods for documenting social learning in the laboratory, these studies often have limited ecological validity and are frequently not practical especially with large or endangered species. Yet, without an understanding of social learning in the context in which it evolved (in freely interacting individuals), we cannot hope to elucidate the interaction between biological and cultural evolution. Thanks to a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship (2007: £270,000), I was able to continue this research following my PhD and maternity leave.
Coelho CG, Ottoni EB, Rawlings B, Kendal RL. In prep. Direct evidence for social transmission in wild capuchin monkeys.
Kendal RL, Kendal JR, Hoppitt W, Laland KN. 2009. Identifying social learning in animal populations: A new ‘option-bias’ method. PLoS ONE 4(8):e6541.
Kendal RL, Galef BG, van Schaik CP. Eds. 2010. Capturing Social Learning in Natural Contexts: Methodological Insights and Implications for Culture. Learning & Behavior 38: 187-336. [This special issue contains many papers including an introduction and an empirical paper using Network Based Diffusion Analysis (NBDA) by Kendal et al.]
Investigating social learning strategies, or transmission biases, in humans and nonhumans
Although social learning is often a cheap and efficient form of learning, it is not adaptive to use social information indiscriminately due to its potential unreliability. Thus it is predicted that social learning strategies (heuristics / transmission biases) should evolve, enabling individuals to avoid the costs associated with non-social learning and determine when they should use social information and from whom they should acquire it.
Kendal RL, Boogert NJ, Rendell L, Laland KN, Webster M & Jones PL. (2018). Social Learning Strategies: Bridge-building between fields. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 22(7): 651-665.
My keynote at the Interactive Minds Centre, Aarhus (Denmark, 2016): Comparative studies of cultural transmission and cumulative culture
Kendal RL, Coolen I, van Bergen Y, Laland KN, 2005. Tradeoffs in the adaptive use of social and asocial learning. Advances in the Study of Behavior 35: 333-379. [this paper investigates the empirical evidence for earlier theoretcial models of cultural evolution]
Wood LA, Kendal RL, Flynn EG. 2013. Whom do children copy? Model-based biases in learning. Developmental Review 33: 341-356.
Wood LA, Kendal RL, Flynn EG. 2013. Copy you or copy me? The effect of prior personally-acquired, and alternative method, information on imitation Cognition 127: 203-213.
Evans C, Laland KN, Carpenter M, Kendal RL. 2018. Selective copying of the majority suggests children are broadly ‘optimal-‘ rather than ‘over-‘ imitators. Developmental Science 21:e12637
Kendal RL, Hopper LM, Whiten A, Brosnan SF, Lambeth SP, Schapiro SJ, Hoppitt W. 2015. Chimpanzees copy dominant and knowledgeable individuals: Implications for cultural diversity. Evolution and Human Behavior 36: 65-72. **Margo Wilson award (Human Behaviour & Evolution Society) for best paper of the year**
Vale, G, Flynn, EG., Kendal, JR., Rawlings, B, Hopper LM., Schapiro SJ., Lambeth SP. & Kendal RL. 2017. Testing differential use of payoff-biased social learning strategies in children and chimpanzees. Proceedings of the Royal Society B [part of a special issue on 'humans as a model for an understanding of biological fundamentals']
Investigating cumulative culture in human and non-human primates
Cumulative culture requires individuals to build upon the knowledge of previous generations such that trait complexity/efficiency evolves across generations. Such cumulative cultural evolution is arguably unique to humans and is widely held to be responsible for humans colonising virtually every terrestrial habitat on the planet and solving countless ecological, social and technological challenges. Using comparative methods, I have investigated the role of socio-cognition and transmission biases in humanity's striking capacity for cumulative culture.
My public talk for the Royal Society of London, at the Manchester Science Festival (2012): Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
My keynote at the Interactive Minds Centre, Aarhus (Denmark, 2016): Comparative studies of cultural transmission and cumulative culture
Dean L, Kendal RL, Schapiro S, Lambeth S, Thierry B, Laland KN. 2012. Identification of the social and cognitive processes underlying human cumulative culture. Science 335: 1114-118.
Dean L, Vale GL, Laland KN, Flynn EG, Kendal RL. 2014. Human cumulative culture: A comparative perspective. Biological Reviews 89: 284-301.
Understanding behavioural innovation in human and non-human primates
Innovation is necessary for the inception of novel behaviours, which may become traditions through being socially learned by others. Moreover, innovation is required for the adaptive modification of traditional behaviours over generations (or cumulative culture). I am interested in how this integral component of behavioural flexibility develops within individuals and the factors that are responsible for individual differences in innovation.
Kendal RL, Coe RL, Laland KN, 2005. Age differences in neophilia, exploration and innovation in family groups of callitrichid monkeys. American Journal of Primatology 66(2): 167-188.
Hopper LM, Price SA, Freeman HD, Lambeth SP, Schapiro SJ, Kendal RL. 2014. Influence of personality, age, sex, and estrous state on chimpanzee problem-solving success. Animal Cognition 17: 835-847.
Rawlings B, Flynn EG, Kendal RL. 2017. To copy or to innovate? The role of personality and social networks on children’s learning strategies. Child Development Perspectives11: 39-44.
Carr K, Kendal RL & Flynn EG. 2016. Eureka!: What is innovation, how does it develop and who does it? Child Development 87: 1505-1519. doi:10.1111/cdev.12549
Applications of research to societal issues and public engagement
Cultural evolution research has great potential for application to real-world issues. For example, knowledge of innovation and cultural transmission may be be used to enhance our ability to foster creativity and spread useful information in humans and nonhumans.
In the context of animal welfare and conservation we may see this in the management of wild animals to avoid human-wildlife conflict, the spread of conservation education messages to humans, and in pre-release training of captive animals being released into the wild:
Donaldson A, Kendal RL, Hill R. In prep. Vervet monkey release in Coral Rag Forest, Kenya. (In collaboration with the Colobus Trust Kenya)
Brown C, Day RL, 2002. The future of stock enhancements: lessons for hatchery practice from conservation biology. Fish and Fisheries 3: 79-94.
Day RL, Coe RL, Kendal JR, Laland KN, 2003. Neophilia, innovation and social learning: A study of intergeneric differences in Callitrichid monkeys. Animal Behaviour 65(3): 559-571.
In the context of health related behaviour a new project with a volcanologist will investigate applying knowledge of transmission biases to enhance the spread of information regarding appropriate use of respiratory protection (masks) against inhalation of harmful fine particulate matter when exposed to volcanic ash during eruptions.
This is part of Prof Claire Horwell's HIVE (Health Interventions in Volcanic Eruptions) project and so far has involved a workshop to co-design outreach products (such as posters and leaflets, as well as informational videos) with NGOs, Government Ministries and community members in Jogyakarta (Indonesia).
The workshop enabled us to take learning biases into account when writing the script and narration for two public health information videos about protecting yourself from breathing volcanic ash and fitting facemasks.
The workshop also informed an experiential film 'Life with Ash' we made about how people coped with ash following the Merapi eruption of 2010.
We will be visiting the communities in January 2019 to launch the products and evaluate them.
In an extension of this work we have begun research on protecting children from air pollution, focusing on urban children in Nepal and Indonesia. This is thanks to an MRC 'Health in Context' grant entitled Factors Affecting Childhood Exposure to Urban Particles (FACE-UP; 2020: £2,000,000) on which I am a Co-Investigator (PI: Claire Horwell).
In the context of science communication and engagement I have been working with an interdisciplinary team to integrate academic knowledge regarding learning, education, and digital humanities with science centre practitioner's knowledge to co-design exhibits for enhancing user creativity. Ultimately we hope the approach will enhance engagement in science in young people through emphasising the creativity involved in scientific careers.
The project is funded by the ESRC IAA fund (2015: £25,000) and is in collaboration with the Centre for Life, a science centre in nearby Newcastle (UK).
For more information see our project website
Kendal RL, Kendal JR, Mursic Z, Bailey-Ross C, Rudman H, Lloyd A, Ross B. 2016. Designing for creativity and innovation in informal science learning. Informal Learning Review. 137: 20-23.
Rudman H, Bailey-Ross C, Kendal J, Mursic Z, Lloyd A & Kendal RL. (2017). Multidisciplinary exhibit design in a Science Centre: a participatory action research approach. Education Action Research
Bailey-Ross C, Rudman H, Kendal J, Mursic Z, Lloyd A, Ross B, Kendal RL. Forthcoming. Reconnecting epistemologies via co-design and participatory action research practice. In Beyond Disciplinarity in Social Research: Methodologies, Epistemologies and Philosophies.(Hayes C, Fulton J, Petrie K, Eds.) London: Routledge, Taylor Francis.
Funding application of cultural evolution to societal issues
On behalf of the Cultural Evolution Society, I am running a large funding scheme (funded by the John Templeton Foundation) that includes a call for Research Projects and formation of Applied Working Groups investigating the application of cultural evolution to societal issues of global concern to enhance human futures.
For further details please see the funding website here. The deadline for outline proposals was 5th January 2022.
Please see Publications for the full list of my research articles, book chapters and edited special issues. Also see Google Scholar & Research Gate