creators_name: Gabora, L.
editors_name: Nadel, Lynn
editors_name: Stein, Daniel L.
type: bookchapter
datestamp: 1999-01-22
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:02
metadata_visibility: show
title: Meme and Variations: A Computational Model of Cultural Evolution
ispublished: pub
subjects: bio-evo
subjects: bio-pop
subjects: bio-theory
subjects: cog-psy
subjects: comp-sci-art-intel
subjects: comp-sci-complex-theory
subjects: comp-sci-mach-dynam-sys
subjects: comp-sci-mach-learn
subjects: comp-sci-neural-nets
subjects: evol-psy
subjects: phil-epist
subjects: soc-psy
full_text_status: public
keywords: adaptation, artificial society, computational anthropology, creativity, culture, cultural evolution, cultural learning, diversity, drift, drives, epistasis, embodiment, evolution, fitness, imitation, innovation, Lamark, meme, memetic algorithm, memetic evolution, memory, mental simulation, mutation, neural network, optimization, overdominance, replication, selection, social learning, transmission, underdominance.
abstract: This paper describes a computational model of how ideas, or memes, evolve through the processes of variation, selection, and replication. Every iteration, each neural-network based agent in an artificial society has the opportunity to acquire a new meme, either through 1) INNOVATION, by mutating a previously-learned meme, or 2) IMITATION, by copying a meme performed by a neighbor. Imitation, mental simulation, and using past experience to bias mutation all increase the rate at which fitter memes evolve. Memes at epistatic loci converged more slowly than memes at over- or underdominant loci. The higher the ratio of innovation to imitation, the greater the meme diversity, and the higher the fitness of the fittest meme. Optimization is fastest for the society as a whole with an innovation to imitation ratio of 2:1, but diversity is comprimized.
date: 1995
date_type: published
publication: 1993 Lectures in Complex Systems
publisher: Addison Wesley
pagerange: 471-485
refereed: FALSE
citation:   Gabora, L.  (1995) Meme and Variations: A Computational Model of Cultural Evolution.  [Book Chapter]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/531/1/mav.htm