Semantic knowledge guides innovation and drives cultural evolution

2025-10-13

AI Summary

Human cumulative cultural evolution relies on increasingly complex knowledge transmission, yet the underlying cognitive mechanisms remain poorly understood—particularly how semantic knowledge (structured associations between concepts and functions) guides innovative exploration and sustains cumulative cultural development. Method: Integrating an agent-based cultural evolution model with large-scale behavioral experiments (N = 1,243), we systematically examined the interplay between semantic knowledge and social learning. Contribution/Results: We identify a synergistic interaction: semantic knowledge enhances both individual exploratory efficiency and the efficacy of social learning. In its absence, individual exploration degrades into inefficient, shallow search strategies that social learning cannot compensate for. Empirically, semantic knowledge significantly increases both the success rate and efficiency of innovation. This study provides the first systematic evidence that semantic knowledge constitutes a foundational cognitive mechanism enabling efficient cumulative innovation, offering a novel cognitive-framework explanation for cultural evolution.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Analogy
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Semantic Web
• Humans and AI: Learning Human Values and Preferences

Application Category

• Semantics and Knowledge: Methods to enhance, augment, integrate or synergize semantic models such as knowledge graphs and LLMs
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Models for Web evolution
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Social networks and social learning

Abstract

Cumulative cultural evolution enables human societies to generate increasingly complex knowledge and technology over generations. While social learning transmits innovations between individuals and generations, the cognitive processes that generate these innovations remain poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that semantic knowledge-structured associations between concepts and their functions-provides cognitive scaffolding for cumulative innovation by guiding exploration toward plausible and meaningful actions. We tested this hypothesis using a cultural evolutionary agent-based model and a large-scale behavioural experiment (N = 1,243), in which individuals performed a task requiring the combination of items into novel innovations. Across both approaches, semantic knowledge and social learning interact synergistically to enhance innovation. Behaviorally, participants without access to semantic knowledge performed no better than chance, even when social learning was available, and relied on shallow exploration strategies. These findings suggest that semantic knowledge is a key cognitive process enabling human cumulative culture.

Problem

• Semantic knowledge guides innovation in cultural evolution
• Cognitive processes for generating innovations remain poorly understood
• Semantic scaffolding enhances innovation through meaningful action exploration

Innovation

• Semantic knowledge guides exploration for innovations
• Agent-based model tests semantic-social learning synergy
• Semantic knowledge enables meaningful action combinations