ABSTRACT
The preceding chapters showed in some detail how learning enabled organisms to specialize and, thus, to make more efficient use of surrounding resources. Thereby, the efficacy of learning itself was significantly increased by the evolution of processes such as social reinforcement, vicarious learning, or language-based third-party reports that basically allowed for the transmission, accumulation, and common use of knowledge that has been collected by many individuals and over extended periods of time. Although in these learning mechanisms other people played a role as either models or adopters with regard to the first person, the mutual interaction of the two individuals and the potential joint benefit to accrue from that have not been accounted for.
