标题： 语义知识引导创新并推动文化演变 显示英文标题

标题： Semantic knowledge guides innovation and drives cultural evolution

摘要： 累积文化进化使人类社会能够代代相传地生成日益复杂的知识和技术。 虽然社会学习在个体和代际之间传递创新，但产生这些创新的认知过程仍不明确。 在这里，我们证明了语义知识——概念与其功能之间的结构化关联——通过引导探索朝着合理且有意义的行为方向，为累积创新提供了认知支撑。 我们使用一个基于文化的进化代理模型和一项大规模的行为实验（N = 1,243）来验证这一假设，其中个体执行了一项需要将物品组合成新创新的任务。 在两种方法中，语义知识和社会学习协同作用以增强创新。 行为上，没有接触语义知识的参与者表现得与随机猜测无异，即使有社会学习可用，他们也依赖于浅层探索策略。 这些发现表明，语义知识是使人类累积文化成为可能的关键认知过程。 显示英文摘要

摘要： 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.