Expanding the scope for social information use

Bonnie, Kristin E.; Earley, Ryan L.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2006.12.009

Cited by 125 publications

(103 citation statements)

References 112 publications

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“…It is thought to occur when an individual changes his behaviour towards a conspecific, after observing the latter in a social interaction (Bonnie and Earley, 2007). Social eavesdropping has been mainly studied in two behavioural contexts: agonistic territorial interactions (Magnhagen, 2006;Naguib and Todt, 1997) …”

Section: The Role Of Public Information and Social Eavesdropping In Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational mate choice: Theory and empirical evidence

Castellano

Cadeddu

Cermelli

2012

Behavioural Processes

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a b s t r a c tThe present review is based on the thesis that mate choice results from information-processing mechanisms governed by computational rules and that, to understand how females choose their mates, we should identify which are the sources of information and how they are used to make decisions. We describe mate choice as a three-step computational process and for each step we present theories and review empirical evidence. The first step is a perceptual process. It describes the acquisition of evidence, that is, how females use multiple cues and signals to assign an attractiveness value to prospective mates (the preference function hypothesis). The second step is a decisional process. It describes the construction of the decision variable (DV), which integrates evidence (private information by direct assessment), priors (public information), and value (perceived utility) of prospective mates into a quantity that is used by a decision rule (DR) to produce a choice. We make the assumption that females are optimal Bayesian decision makers and we derive a formal model of DV that can explain the effects of preference functions, mate copying, social context, and females' state and condition on the patterns of mate choice. The third step of mating decision is a deliberative process that depends on the DRs. We identify two main categories of DRs (absolute and comparative rules), and review the normative models of mate sampling tactics associated to them. We highlight the limits of the normative approach and present a class of computational models (sequential-sampling models) that are based on the assumption that DVs accumulate noisy evidence over time until a decision threshold is reached. These models force us to rethink the dichotomy between comparative and absolute decision rules, between discrimination and recognition, and even between rational and irrational choice. Since they have a robust biological basis, we think they may represent a useful theoretical tool for behavioural ecologist interested in integrating proximate and ultimate causes of mate choice.

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Section: The Role Of Public Information and Social Eavesdropping In Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational mate choice: Theory and empirical evidence

Castellano

Cadeddu

Cermelli

2012

Behavioural Processes

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“…Deciding whether to use acquired information is a critical decision that could deeply affect an individual's behaviour, and ultimately its fitness. Theory and empirical evidence suggest that this decision is controlled by a wide array of factors affecting both informed and uninformed individuals [1,2]. Such factors range from environmental [3] to population [4] or individual characteristics [5][6][7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How social network structure affects decision-making inDrosophila melanogaster

et al. 2016

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Animals use a number of different mechanisms to acquire crucial information. During social encounters, animals can pass information from one to another but, ideally, they would only use information that benefits survival and reproduction. Therefore, individuals need to be able to determine the value of the information they receive. One cue can come from the behaviour of other individuals that are already using the information. Using a previous extended dataset, we studied how individual decision-making is influenced by the behaviour of conspecifics in Drosophila melanogaster. We analysed how uninformed flies acquire and later use information about oviposition site choice they learn from informed flies. Our results suggest that uninformed flies adjust their future choices based on how coordinated the behaviours of the informed individuals they encounter are. Following social interaction, uninformed flies tended either to collectively follow the choice of the informed flies or to avoid it. Using social network analysis, we show that this selective information use seems to be based on the level of homogeneity of the social network. In particular, we found that the variance of individual centrality parameters among informed flies was lower in the case of a 'follow' outcome compared with the case of an 'avoid' outcome.

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“…Others' behavioural activities provide a valuable form of 'social information' (Bonnie & Earley 2007;Seppänen et al 2007), which can effectively reduce individuals' uncertainty about many of the ecological decisions they face, from finding food and mates to avoiding predators (Dall 2005). In certain cases social information involves true signals, acts specialized by natural selection to convey information (Bradbury & Vehrencamp 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How rugged individualists enable one another to find food and shelter: field experiments with tropical hermit crabs

Laidre

2009

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Animals from invertebrates to humans benefit from information conspecifics make available, including information produced inadvertently. While inadvertent social information may frequently be exploited in nature, experiments have rarely been conducted in the wild to examine how such information helps animals in their natural ecology. Here I report a series of field experiments on free-living terrestrial hermit crabs (Coenobita compressus), showing how these asocial invertebrates learn the locations of their most essential resources, food and shelter, using inadvertent cues from conspecific competitors. Crabs have limited abilities to locate resources individually, but as they coalesce on a resource, their aggregation can be noticed by passing foragers, tipping them off about the discovery. Foragers were strongly attracted to experimentally simulated aggregations in which crabs were tethered to the same spot and in which the resources normally found beneath aggregations were excluded. Simulated aggregations of crabs whose shells were removed were likewise attractive, more than even these sought-after-shelters themselves. Experiments that simulated the chemical and visual cues of aggregations independently revealed that foragers oriented to aggregations primarily by sight, cueing in on the jostling competitive activity of the aggregation. Although crabs have not been selected to recruit others to newly discovered resources, their natural ecology has provided a setting where competitors regularly help one another by means of inadvertent social information.

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Expanding the scope for social information use

Cited by 125 publications

References 112 publications

Computational mate choice: Theory and empirical evidence

Computational mate choice: Theory and empirical evidence

How social network structure affects decision-making inDrosophila melanogaster

How rugged individualists enable one another to find food and shelter: field experiments with tropical hermit crabs

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