The zone of latent solutions (ZLS) hypothesis provides an alternative approach to explaining cultural patterns in primates and many other animals. According to the ZLS hypothesis, non-human great ape (henceforth: ape) cultures consist largely or solely of latent solutions. The current competing (and predominant) hypothesis for ape culture argues instead that at least some of their behavioural or artefact forms are copied through specific social learning mechanisms (“copying social learning hypothesis”) and that their forms may depend on copying (copying-dependent forms). In contrast, the ape ZLS hypothesis does not require these forms to be copied. Instead, it suggests that several (non-form-copying) social learning mechanisms help determine the frequency (but typically not the form) of these behaviours and artefacts within connected individuals. The ZLS hypothesis thus suggests that increases and stabilisations of a particular behaviour’s or artefact’s frequency can derive from socially-mediated (cued) form reinnovations. Therefore, and while genes and ecology play important roles as well, according to the ape ZLS hypothesis, apes typically acquire the forms of their behaviours and artefacts individually, but are usually socially induced to do so (provided sufficient opportunity, necessity, motivation and timing). The ZLS approach is often criticized—perhaps also because it challenges the current null hypothesis, which instead assumes a requirement of form-copying social learning mechanisms to explain many ape behavioural (and/or artefact) forms. However, as the ZLS hypothesis is a new approach, with less accumulated literature compared to the current null hypothesis, some confusion is to be expected. Here, we clarify the ZLS approach—also in relation to other competing hypotheses—and address misconceptions and objections. We believe that these clarifications will provide researchers with a coherent theoretical approach and an experimental methodology to examine the necessity of form-copying variants of social learning in apes, humans and other species.

中文翻译：

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潜在解决方案区及其与理解猿文化的相关性


潜在解决方案区（ZLS）假说提供了另一种方法来解释灵长类动物和许多其他动物的文化模式。根据 ZLS 假说，非人类类人猿（以下简称：猿）文化主要或仅由潜在解决方案组成。当前对猿文化的竞争（和主要）假说认为，至少它们的一些行为或人工制品形式是通过特定的社会学习机制复制的（“复制社会学习假说”），并且它们的形式可能依赖于复制（复制依赖）表格）。相比之下，猿 ZLS 假说不需要复制这些形式。相反，它表明几种（非形式复制）社会学习机制有助于确定相互联系的个体中这些行为和人工制品的频率（但通常不是形式）。因此，ZLS 假设表明，特定行为或人工制品频率的增加和稳定可以源自社会介导（提示）的形式再创新。因此，虽然基因和生态学也发挥着重要作用，但根据猿类 ZLS 假说，猿类通常会单独获得其行为和人工制品的形式，但通常是社会诱导这样做的（提供足够的机会、必要性、动机和时机） ）。 ZLS 方法经常受到批评——也许还因为它挑战了当前的零假设，即假设需要形式复制的社会学习机制来解释许多猿类行为（和/或人工制品）形式。然而，由于 ZLS 假设是一种新方法，与当前的原假设相比，积累的文献较少，因此可能会出现一些混乱。 在这里，我们澄清了 ZLS 方法——也与其他竞争假设相关——并解决了误解和反对意见。我们相信，这些澄清将为研究人员提供连贯的理论方法和实验方法，以检验猿类、人类和其他物种社会学习的形式复制变体的必要性。