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03
Memory and affinity are key to innovation
RECENT RESEARCH from the Tipping Points project led
by Professor Alex Bentley, Dr Camila Caiado and Dr Paul
Ormerod reveals the importance of cultural memory to the
spread of innovation. For the study, published in the journal
Evolution and Human Behaviour, the team investigated the
role of memory in small and large populations using a neutral
agent-based model that simulates human interactions. They
found that long-term cultural memory tends to reject rather
than preserve local unique inventions, and that an increase
in memory is the equivalent of increasing the affinity or
relationship between agents in the model, which blocks
influences from outside the group.
Agents’ affinity refers to not only how far apart they are
physically, but could also refer to the relational distance
between two family members, for example, or degree of
friendship in a social network. According to the study,
increasing cultural memory reduces the size of the ‘invention
pool’ and the few alternatives that do exist are not taken
up quickly enough to have much of an impact, if at all.
The research team conclude that increasing memory may
actually decrease the visibility of an innovation, b