Our previous work on real-valued function optimization problems

had shown that cultural learning emerged as the result of meta-level interaction

or swarming of knowledge sources, “knowledge swarms” in the belief

space. These meta-level swarms induced the swarming of individuals in the

population space, “Cultural Swarms”. The interaction of these knowledge

sources produced emergent phases of problem solving. In this paper we apply

the approach to a real-world problem in engineering design. We observe the

emergence of these same features in a completely different problem environment.

We conclude by suggesting the emergent features are what give cultural

systems their power to learn and adapt.