Cultural evolutionary theories define prestige as social rank that is freely conferred on individuals possessing superior knowledge or skill, in order to gain opportunities to learn from such individuals. Consequently, information provided by prestigious individuals should be more memorable, and hence more likely to be culturally transmitted, than information from non-prestigious sources, particularly for novel, controversial arguments about which preexisting opinions are absent or weak. It has also been argued that this effect extends beyond the prestigious individual’s relevant domain of expertise. We tested whether the prestige and relevance of the sources of novel, controversial arguments affected the transmission of those arguments, independently of their content. In a four-generation linear transmission chain experiment, British participants (N = 192) recruited online read two conflicting arguments in favour of or against the replacement of textbooks by computer tablets in schools. Each of the two conflicting arguments was associated with one of three sources with different levels of prestige and relevance (high prestige, high relevance; high prestige, low relevance; low prestige, low relevance). Participants recalled the pro-tablets and anti-tablets arguments associated with each source and their recall was then passed to the next participant within their chain. Contrary to our predictions, we did not find a reliable effect of either the prestige or relevance of the sources of information on transmission fidelity. We discuss whether the lack of a reliable effect of prestige on recall might be a consequence of differences between how prestige operates in this experiment and in everyday life.

文化进化论定义声望自由授予拥有较高知识或技能的人的社会地位，以获取向此类人学习的机会。因此，与非知名人士提供的信息相比，享有声誉的个人提供的信息应该更具有纪念意义，因此更有可能在文化上传播，特别是对于那些缺乏或存在较弱观点的新颖，有争议的论点。也有人认为，这种影响超出了享有声望的个人的相关专业知识领域。我们测试了新颖的，有争议的论据来源的声望和相关性是否影响了这些论据的传播，而与它们的内容无关。在四代线性传输链实验中，英国参与者（N= 192）在线招募的学生阅读了两个相互矛盾的论点，它们赞成或反对学校用平板电脑代替教科书。这两个相互矛盾的论点中的每一个都与具有不同声望和相关度（高声望，高相关性，高声望，低相关性，低声望，低相关性）的三个来源之一相关。参与者回顾了与每个来源相关的赞成片剂和反对片剂的论点，然后将他们的回忆传递给其链中的下一个参与者。与我们的预测相反，我们没有发现信源对传播保真度的信誉或相关性的可靠影响。