IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0264509.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evoked and transmitted culture models: Using bayesian methods to infer the evolution of cultural traits in history

Author

Listed:
  • Alexandre Hyafil
  • Nicolas Baumard

Abstract

A central question in behavioral and social sciences is understanding to what extent cultural traits are inherited from previous generations, transmitted from adjacent populations or produced in response to changes in socioeconomic and ecological conditions. As quantitative diachronic databases recording the evolution of cultural artifacts over many generations are becoming more common, there is a need for appropriate data-driven methods to approach this question. Here we present a new Bayesian method to infer the dynamics of cultural traits in a diachronic dataset. Our method called Evoked-Transmitted Cultural model (ETC) relies on fitting a latent-state model where a cultural trait is a latent variable which guides the production of the cultural artifacts observed in the database. The dynamics of this cultural trait may depend on the value of the cultural traits present in previous generations and in adjacent populations (transmitted culture) and/or on ecological factors (evoked culture). We show how ETC models can be fitted to quantitative diachronic or synchronic datasets, using the Expectation-Maximization algorithm, enabling estimating the relative contribution of vertical transmission, horizontal transmission and evoked component in shaping cultural traits. The method also allows to reconstruct the dynamics of cultural traits in different regions. We tested the performance of the method on synthetic data for two variants of the method (for binary or continuous traits). We found that both variants allow reliable estimates of parameters guiding cultural evolution, and that they outperform purely phylogenetic tools that ignore horizontal transmission and ecological factors. Overall, our method opens new possibilities to reconstruct how culture is shaped from quantitative data, with possible application in cultural history, cultural anthropology, archaeology, historical linguistics and behavioral ecology.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandre Hyafil & Nicolas Baumard, 2022. "Evoked and transmitted culture models: Using bayesian methods to infer the evolution of cultural traits in history," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(4), pages 1-21, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0264509
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0264509
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0264509
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0264509&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0264509?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benetos, Emmanouil & Ragano, Alessandro & Sgroi, Daniel & Tuckwell, Anthony, 2021. "Measuring national happiness with music," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1326, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    2. Thomas T. Hills & Eugenio Proto & Daniel Sgroi & Chanuki Illushka Seresinhe, 2019. "Historical analysis of national subjective wellbeing using millions of digitized books," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 3(12), pages 1271-1275, December.
    3. Joseph Watts & Oliver Sheehan & Quentin D. Atkinson & Joseph Bulbulia & Russell D. Gray, 2016. "Ritual human sacrifice promoted and sustained the evolution of stratified societies," Nature, Nature, vol. 532(7598), pages 228-231, April.
    4. Roger Fouquet & Stephen Broadberry, 2015. "Seven Centuries of European Economic Growth and Decline," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 227-244, Fall.
    5. M. Jamshidian & R. I. Jennrich, 2000. "Standard errors for EM estimation," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 62(2), pages 257-270.
    6. Ian Morris, 2013. "The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9830.
    7. Lou Safra & Coralie Chevallier & Julie Grèzes & Nicolas Baumard, 2020. "Tracking historical changes in perceived trustworthiness in Western Europe using machine learning analyses of facial cues in paintings," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-7, December.
    8. Alberto Acerbi & Vasileios Lampos & Philip Garnett & R Alexander Bentley, 2013. "The Expression of Emotions in 20th Century Books," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(3), pages 1-6, March.
    9. Buringh, Eltjo & Van Zanden, Jan Luiten, 2009. "Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(2), pages 409-445, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ralph Hippe & Roger Fouquet, 2024. "The Human Capital Transition and the Role of Policy," Springer Books, in: Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert (ed.), Handbook of Cliometrics, edition 3, pages 411-457, Springer.
    2. Claude Diebolt & Roger Fouquet & Ralph Hippe, 2020. "Cliometrics and the Evolution of Human Capital," Post-Print hal-02920429, HAL.
    3. Brodeur, Abel & Clark, Andrew E. & Fleche, Sarah & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2021. "COVID-19, lockdowns and well-being: Evidence from Google Trends," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    4. Coşgel, Metin M. & Miceli, Thomas J. & Rubin, Jared, 2012. "The political economy of mass printing: Legitimacy and technological change in the Ottoman Empire," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 357-371.
    5. Johnson, Noel D. & Koyama, Mark, 2017. "Jewish communities and city growth in preindustrial Europe," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 339-354.
    6. Ortal Slobodin & Ilia Plochotnikov & Idan-Chaim Cohen & Aviad Elyashar & Odeya Cohen & Rami Puzis, 2022. "Global and Local Trends Affecting the Experience of US and UK Healthcare Professionals during COVID-19: Twitter Text Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(11), pages 1-17, June.
    7. Sarah M. Leisterer-Peoples & Susanne Hardecker & Joseph Watts & Simon J. Greenhill & Cody T. Ross & Daniel B. M. Haun, 2021. "The Austronesian Game Taxonomy: A cross-cultural dataset of historical games," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-11, December.
    8. Joshua Conrad Jackson & Marieke van Egmond & Virginia K Choi & Carol R Ember & Jamin Halberstadt & Jovana Balanovic & Inger N Basker & Klaus Boehnke & Noemi Buki & Ronald Fischer & Marta Fulop & Ashle, 2019. "Ecological and cultural factors underlying the global distribution of prejudice," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(9), pages 1-17, September.
    9. O'Brien, Patrick, 2018. "Cosmographies for the discovery, development and diffusion of useful and reliable knowledge in pre-industrial Europe and Late imperial China: a survey and speculation," Economic History Working Papers 90534, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    10. Popov, Vladimir, 2015. "Разрыв Между Югом И Западом По Уровню Экономического Развития Сокращается? [Catching up: Developing countries in pursuit of growth]," MPRA Paper 65893, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Cantoni, Davide & Yuchtman, Noam, 2013. "The political economy of educational content and development: Lessons from history," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 233-244.
    12. Broadberry, Stephen & Ghosal, Sayantan & Proto, Eugenio, 2017. "Anonymity, efficiency wages and technological progress," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 379-394.
    13. Arnaud Deseau, 2023. "Speed of Convergence in a Malthusian World: Weak or Strong Homeostasis?," AMSE Working Papers 2326, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    14. Sudeep Bhatia & Lukasz Walasek & Paul Slovic & Howard Kunreuther, 2021. "The More Who Die, the Less We Care: Evidence from Natural Language Analysis of Online News Articles and Social Media Posts," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 179-203, January.
    15. Blair Fix, 2019. "Energy, hierarchy and the origin of inequality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(4), pages 1-32, April.
    16. Liang Xu & Min Xu & Zehua Jiang & Xin Wen & Yishan Liu & Zaoyi Sun & Hongting Li & Xiuying Qian, 2023. "How have music emotions been described in Google books? Historical trends and corpus differences," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    17. Emmanuel Bovari & Victor Court, 2019. "Energy, knowledge, and demo-economic development in the long run: a unified growth model," Working Papers hal-01698755, HAL.
    18. Dirick, Lore & Claeskens, Gerda & Vasnev, Andrey & Baesens, Bart, 2022. "A hierarchical mixture cure model with unobserved heterogeneity for credit risk," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 39-55.
    19. Anila Arif & Kashif Shafique & Khuram Ahmad Khan & Shahida Haji, 2021. "Analysis of Water Policy & Sustainable Development in Pakistan," International Journal of Agriculture & Sustainable Development, 50sea, vol. 3(4), pages 87-93, November.
    20. Desierto, Desiree & Koyama, Mark, 2024. "The Political Economy of Status Competition: Sumptuary Laws in Preindustrial Europe," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(2), pages 479-516, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0264509. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.