The Costly Information Hypothesis
The costly information hypothesis is used to explore how adaptive biases relate to cultural evolution within the field of dual inheritance theory. The focus is on the evolutionary trade-offs in cost between individual learning, (e.g., operant conditioning) and social learning. If more accurate information that could be acquired through individual learning is too costly, evolution may favor learning mechanisms that, in turn, are biased towards less costly, (though potentially less accurate), information via social learning.
Read more about this topic: Adaptive Bias
Famous quotes containing the words costly, information and/or hypothesis:
“You should hurry up ... and acquire the cigar habit. It’s one of the major happinesses. And so much more lasting than love, so much less costly in emotional wear and tear.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“As information technology restructures the work situation, it abstracts thought from action.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“Oversimplified, Mercier’s Hypothesis would run like this: “Wit is always absurd and true, humor absurd and untrue.””
—Vivian Mercier (b. 1919)