Signalling and the Cultural Evolution of Art

Abstract

Abstract Why and how does art evolve? Evolutionary psychology has commonly focused on unravelling evolutionary functions of art and establishing innate cognitive predispositions that might be exploited in art (e.g. attentional preference for animal cues). Cultural evolution research enriches and complements this work. First, studies based on cultural attraction theory establish how such predispositions foster historical convergences in the forms art takes, for instance in renaissance portraiture. Moreover, in line with dual inheritance theory, several lines of evidence indicate a key role for social learning dynamics as well, such as prestige bias driven divergences from innate cognition in contemporary art appreciation. This article points out that, despite their differences, these evolutionary approaches to art have in common that they are grounded in signalling theory. Within this encompassing signalling framework, various art traditions (e.g. the Acheulean hand axe), factors (e.g. ecology and demography), and methods (e.g. phylogenetic comparison) are considered.