Representational exchange in social learning: Blurring the lines between the ritual and instrumental

We propose that human social learning is subject to a trade-off between the cost of performing a computation and the flexibility of its outputs. Viewing social learning through this lens sheds light on cases that seem to violate bifocal stance theory (BST) - such as high-fidelity imitation in instrumental action - and provides a mechanism by which causal insight can be bootstrapped from imitation of cultural practices.