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Books Received
Primate-Science / PrimateLit


THE BIOLOGY OF TRADITIONS: MODELS AND EVIDENCE

Edited by Dorothy M. Fragaszy and Susan Perry
Cambridge University Press, 2003

FROM THE BACK COVER

Socially maintained behavioral traditions in nonhuman species hold great 
interest for biologists, anthropologists, and psychologists. This book 
treats traditions in nonhuman species as biological phenomena that are 
amenable to the comparative methods of inquiry used in contemporary 
biology. Chapters in the first section define behavioral traditions and 
indicate how they can arise in nonhuman species, how widespread they may 
be, how they may be recognized, and how we can study them. The second part 
summarizes the latest research programs seeking to identify traditions in 
diverse taxa, with contributions from leading researchers in this area. The 
book ends with a comparison and evaluation of the alternative theoretical 
formulations and their applications presented in the book and makes 
recommendations for future research building on the most promising evidence 
and lines of thinking. The Biology of Traditions will be essential reading 
for students and researchers in the fields of anthropology, biology, and 
psychology.

DOROTHY M. FRAGASZY is Professor of Psychology and the Chair of the 
Neuroscience and Behavior Program at the University of Georgia, where she 
teaches development, developmental psychobiology, and comparative 
cognition. She has also co-authored The Complete Capuchin: The Biology of 
the Genus Cebus.

SUSAN PERRY is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the 
University of California, Los Angeles, and Head of the Junior Independent 
Research Group in Cultural Phylogeny at the Max Planck Institute for 
Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Her research focuses 
currently on the role of social influence on the behavioral development of 
wild capuchin monkeys.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of contributors    ix
Preface    xiii
Acknowledgements    xvii

1. Towards a biology of traditions    1
DOROTHY M. FRAGASZY AND SUSAN PERRY

2. What the models say about social learning    33
KEVIN N. LALAND AND JEREMY R. KENDAL

3. Relative brain size and the distribution of innovation and social 
learning across the nonhuman primates    56
SIMON M. READER

4. Social learning about food in birds    94
LOUIS LEFEBVRE AND JULIE BOUCHARD

5. The cue reliability approach to social transmission: designing tests for 
adaptive traditions    127
GWEN DEWAR

6. "Traditional" foraging behaviors of brown and black rats
(Rattus norvegicus and Rattus rattus)    159
BENNETT G. GALEF, JR.

7. Food for thought: social learning about food in feeding capuchin 
monkeys    187
ELISABETTA VISALBERGHI AND ELSA ADDESSI

8. Traditions in mammalian and avian vocal communication    213
VINCENT M. JANIK AND PETER J. B. SLATER

9. Like mother, like calf: the ontogeny of foraging traditions
in wild Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.)    236
JANET MANN AND BROOKE SARGEANT

10. Biological and ecological foundations of primate behavioral 
tradition    267
MICHAEL A. HOFFMAN AND SATOSHI HIRATA

11. Local traditions in orangutans and chimpanzees:
social learning and social tolerance    297
CAREL P. VAN SCHAIK

12. Developmental perspectives on great ape traditions    329
ANNE E. RUSSON

13. Do brown capuchins socially learn foraging skills?    365
SUE BOINSKI, ROBERT P. QUATRONE,
KAREN SUGHRUE, LARA SELVAGGI, MALINDA HENRY,
CLAUDIA M. STICKLER, AND LISA M. ROSE

14. Traditions in wild white-faced capuchin monkeys    391
SUSAN PERRY, MELISSA PANGER, LISA M. ROSE,
MARY BAKER, JULIE GROS-LOUIS, KATHERINE JACK,
KATHERINE C. MACKINNON, JOSEPH MANSON,
LINDA FEDIGAN, AND KENDRA PYLE

15. Conclusions and research agendas    426
SUSAN PERRY

Further reading    441
Index    445

*****************************************************

ISBN: 0521815975 (hardcover) $90.00 USD

WHERE TO ORDER:
Cambridge University Press
110 Midland Avenue
Port Chester, NY 10573-4930

General phone: (914)937-9600
General fax: (914)937-4712

http://us.cambridge.org/titles/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521815975


Posted Date: 8/21/2003

URL: http://www.primate.wisc.edu/pin/review/biotra.html
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