Cultural Learning in a Dynamic Environment: an Analysis of Both Fitness and Diversity in Populations of Neural Network Agents

Evolutionary learning is a learning model that can be described as the iterative Darwinian process of fitness-based selection and genetic transfer of information leading to populations of higher fitness. Cultural learning describes the process of information transfer between individuals in a population through non-genetic means. Cultural learning has been simulated by combining genetic algorithms and neural networks using a teacher/pupil scenario where highly fit individuals are selected as teachers and instruct the next generation. This paper examines the effects of cultural learning on the evolutionary process of a population of neural networks. In particular, the paper examines the genotypic and phenotypic diversity of a population as well as its fitness. Using these measurements, it is possible to examine the effects of cultural learning on the population's genetic makeup. Furthermore, the paper examines whether cultural learning provides a more robust learning mechanism in the face of environmental changes. Three benchmark tasks have been chosen as the evolutionary task for the population: the bit-parity problem, the game of tic-tac-toe and the game of connect-four. Experiments are conducted with populations employing evolutionary learning alone and populations combining evolutionary and cultural learning in an environment that changes dramatically.