Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

This paper discusses the role of culture in the evolution of cognitive systems. We define "culture" as any information transmitted between individuals and between generations by nongenetic means. Experiments are presented that use genetic programming systems that include special mechanisms for cultural transmission of information. These systems evolve computer programs that perform cognitive tasks including mathematical function mapping and action selection in a virtual world. The data show that the presence of culture-supporting mechanisms can have a clear beneficial impact on the evolvability of correct programs. The implications that these results may have for cognitive science are briefly discussed.