Abstract
The use of social information is a prerequisite to the evolution of culture. In humans, social learning allowsindividuals to aggregate adaptive information and increase the complexity of technology at a levelunparalleled in the animal kingdom. However, the potential to use social information is related to theavailability of this type of information. Although most cultural evolution experiments assume that sociallearners are free to use social information, there are many examples of information withholding, particularlyin ethnographic studies. In this experiment, we used a computer-based cultural game in which players werefaced with a complex task and had the possibility to trade a specific part of their knowledge within theirgroups. The dynamics of information transmission were studied when competition was within- or exclusivelybetween-groups. Our results show that between-group competition improved the transmission ofinformation, increasing the amount and the quality of information. Further, informational access costs didnot prevent social learners from performing better than individual learners, even when between-groupcompetition was absent. Interestingly, between-group competition did not entirely eliminate access costs anddid not improve the performance of players as compared with within-group competition. These resultssuggest that thefield of cultural evolution would benefit from a better understanding of the factors thatunderlie the production and the sharing of information.