The accumulated copying error model (ACE) combines findings on the proportional nature of human visual perception error with cultural transmission theory. Previous studies have employed ACE to provide population-level expectations of the coefficient of variation (CV) of a continuous trait, such as the thickness of ceramic vessels. To date, empirical departures from expected CV values have been interpreted as evidence of biased cultural transmission or functional constraints without consideration for how population size might affect population-level cultural variation in the presence of proportional perception error. Here, I employ agent-based simulation experiments to investigate the ways in which population size affects the CV of a continuous cultural trait under different cultural transmission mechanisms. Results show that the CV of a continuous cultural trait is a function of its cultural equivalent N and effective population size (N_e) as well as the relative strength of cultural selection. The results also demonstrate that different combinations of N and cultural transmission yield identical CV values. The study highlights a new set of difficulties with inferring individual-level process—the mechanism(s) by which cultural information is transmitted among individuals—from population-level pattern—the CV of a continuous cultural trait. In light of these results, I identify and discuss one avenue through which we might improve our ability to infer past cultural transmission from archeological data.

累积复制错误模型（ACE）将有关人类视觉感知错误的比例性质的发现与文化传播理论相结合。以前的研究已经使用ACE来提供对连续性状的变异系数（CV）（例如陶瓷容器的厚度）的总体水平的期望。迄今为止，经验上偏离预期CV值的现象已被解释为文化传播或功能约束存在偏见的证据，而不考虑在比例感知错误的情况下人口规模可能如何影响人口水平的文化差异。在这里，我采用基于主体的模拟实验来研究在不同文化传播机制下，人口规模如何影响连续文化特征的简历。N和有效人口规模（N _e）以及文化选择的相对强度。结果还表明，氮和文化传播的不同组合产生相同的CV值。这项研究突出了推断个人水平过程的一系列新困难，即从人群水平的模式到持续的文化特征的简历，在个人之间传播文化信息的机制。根据这些结果，我确定并讨论了一条途径，通过该途径我们可以提高从考古数据推断过去文化传播的能力。