The zone of latent solutions and its relevance to understanding ape cultures
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The zone of latent solutions and its relevance to understanding ape cultures Claudio Tennie1 · Elisa Bandini1 · Carel P. van Schaik2 · Lydia M. Hopper3 Received: 18 August 2019 / Accepted: 18 September 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The zone of latent solutions (ZLS) hypothesis provides an alternative approach to explaining cultural patterns in primates and many other animals. According to the ZLS hypothesis, non-human great ape (henceforth: ape) cultures consist largely or solely of latent solutions. The current competing (and predominant) hypothesis for ape culture argues instead that at least some of their behavioural or artefact forms are copied through specific social learning mechanisms (“copying social learning hypothesis”) and that their forms may depend on copying (copying-dependent forms). In contrast, the ape ZLS hypothesis does not require these forms to be copied. Instead, it suggests that several (non-form-copying) social learning mechanisms help determine the frequency (but typically not the form) of these behaviours and artefacts within connected individuals. The ZLS hypothesis thus suggests that increases and stabilisations of a particular behaviour’s or artefact’s frequency can derive from socially-mediated (cued) form reinnovations. Therefore, and while genes and ecology play important roles as well, according to the ape ZLS hypothesis, apes typically acquire the forms of their behaviours and artefacts individually, but are usually socially induced to do so (provided sufficient opportunity, necessity, motivation and timing). The ZLS approach is often criticized—perhaps also because it challenges the current null hypothesis, which instead assumes a requirement of form-copying social learning mechanisms to explain many ape behavioural (and/ or artefact) forms. However, as the ZLS hypothesis is a new approach, with less accumulated literature compared to the current null hypothesis, some confusion is to be expected. Here, we clarify the ZLS approach—also in relation to other competing hypotheses—and address misconceptions and objections. We believe that these clarifications will provide researchers with a coherent theoretical approach and an experimental methodology to examine the necessity of form-copying variants of social learning in apes, humans and other species. Keywords Zone of latent solutions · Ape culture · Chimpanzee · Individual learning · Copying social learning · Imitation · Socially mediated reinnovations · Copying-dependent forms Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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C. Tennie et al.
Introduction Despite the continuously growing body of research on the behavioural repertoires of non-human great apes (henceforth: apes), the necessary mechanisms behind the acquisition of their various behavioural and artefact forms1 are still a matter of debate. Many have argued that apes acquire their behavioural and artefact forms through similar social learning mechanisms to those often relied upon by humans: i.e.
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