Optimized technologies emerge through the selective retention of small improvements across generations without requiring explicit understanding of how these technologies work; we don't spontaneously create multidimensional causal theories but instead mainly produce simplistic models

Derex, Maxime, Jean-François Bonnefon, Robert Boyd, and Alex Mesoudi. 2018. “Causal Understanding Is Not Necessary for the Improvement of Culturally Evolving Technology.” PsyArXiv. September 3. doi:10.31234/osf.io/nm5sh

Abstract: Highly-optimized tools are common in traditional populations. Bows and arrows, dogsleds, clothing, houses, and kayaks are just a few examples of the complex, exquisitely designed tools that humans produced and used to colonize new, demanding environments. Because there is much evidence that humans’ cognitive abilities are unparalleled, many believe that such technologies resulted from our superior causal reasoning abilities. However, others have stressed that the high dimensionality of human technologies make them very hard to understand causally. Instead, they argue that optimized technologies emerge through the selective retention of small improvements across generations without requiring explicit understanding of how these technologies work. Here, we find experimental support for the latter view by showing that a physical artifact becomes progressively optimized across generations of social learners in the absence of explicit causal understanding. We find that participants do not spontaneously create multidimensional causal theories but instead mainly produce simplistic models related to a specifically salient dimension. Finally, we show that the transmission of these simplistic theories constrain exploration in subsequent generations of learners and has negative downstream effects on their understanding. These results indicate that highly optimized technologies do not necessarily result from evolved reasoning abilities but instead can emerge from the blind accumulation of many small improvements made across generations linked by cultural transmission, and demand a focus on the cultural dynamics underlying technological change as well as individual cognition.

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Of the 56 participants who received a theory... 15 received an inertia-related theory, 17 received an energy-related theory, 6 received a full theory and 18 received diverse, irrelevant theories

...inherited theories strongly affected participant's understanding of the wheel system. Participants who did not inherit any theory (“Configurations” treatment) scored similarly (and better than chance) on questions about inertia and questions about energy (Fig. 3I). In comparison, participants who inherited an inertia- or energy- related theory showed skewed understanding patterns. Inheriting an inertia-related theory increased their understanding of inertia, but decreased their understanding of energy; symmetrically, inheriting an energy-related theory increased their understanding of energy, but decreased their understanding about inertia. One explanation for this pattern is that inheriting a unidimensional theory makes individuals focus on the effect of one parameter while blinding them to the effects of others. However, participants’ understanding may also result from different exploration patterns. For instance, participants who received an inertia-related theory mainly produced balanced wheels (Fig. 3F), which could have prevented them from observing the effect of varying the position of the wheel’s center of mass.

...These results suggest that the understanding patterns observed in participants who received unidimensional theories is likely the result of the canalizing effect of theory transmission on exploration. Note that in the present case, this canalizing effect is performance-neutral: with our 2-dimensional problem, better understanding of one dimension and worse understanding of one dimension simply compensate each other. For a many-dimensional problem, though, better understanding of one dimension is unlikely to compensate for worse understanding of all the others.