Preflight Signalling in Swans: A Mechanism for Group Cohesion and Flock Formation

Black, Jeffrey M.

doi:10.1111/j.1439-0310.1988.tb00707.x

Cited by 103 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 9 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…This voting behaviour is exemplified by the waggle-dance of honeybees [10], but includes chemical trails [20], vocalizations [21], posturing [5] and a range of other means [22][23][24]. These votes are mimetically reinforced by other group members or countered by votes for alternative options, though eventually one option emerges as the one favoured by the majority.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ants work harder during consensus decision-making in small groups

Cronin

Stumpe²

2014

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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Individuals derive many benefits from being social, one of which is improved accuracy of decision-making, the so-called 'wisdom of the crowds' effect. This advantage arises because larger groups can pool information from more individuals. At present, limited empirical data indicate that larger groups outperform smaller ones during consensus decision-making in human and non-human animals. Inaccurate decisions can lead to significant costs, and we might therefore expect individuals in small groups to employ mechanisms to compensate for the lack of numbers. Small groups may be able to maintain decision accuracy if individuals are better informed than those in larger groups and/or by increasing the proportion of the group involved in collective decision-making relative to larger groups. In this study, we use interactive computer vision software to investigate individual contributions to consensus decision-making during house-hunting in different sized groups of the ant Myrmecina nipponica. We show that individuals in small colonies invest greater effort in the consensus decision process than those in large colonies and should be better informed as a result. This may act to ameliorate the limitations of group size, but could leave smaller groups more susceptible to additional stresses.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ants work harder during consensus decision-making in small groups

Cronin

Stumpe²

2014

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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“…group decision rules | signal detection theory | ideal observer analyses | wisdom of crowds G roups of insects (1)(2)(3)(4), fish (5-7), birds (8)(9)(10), mammals (11)(12)(13)(14), and primates (15)(16)(17)(18) have been shown to aggregate their individual judgments into group decisions for various tasks (19,20). Although some groups seem to have leaders who make decisions alone on behalf of their groups (17,(21)(22)(23), it is difficult for individuals to outperform even simple aggregations of the entire group's individual judgments (4,7,9,10,19,(24)(25)(26).…”

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confidence: 99%

The wisdom of crowds for visual search

Juni

Eckstein

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Decision-making accuracy typically increases through collective integration of people's judgments into group decisions, a phenomenon known as the wisdom of crowds. For simple perceptual laboratory tasks, classic signal detection theory specifies the upper limit for collective integration benefits obtained by weighted averaging of people's confidences, and simple majority voting can often approximate that limit. Life-critical perceptual decisions often involve searching large image data (e.g., medical, security, and aerial imagery), but the expected benefits and merits of using different pooling algorithms are unknown for such tasks. Here, we show that expected pooling benefits are significantly greater for visual search than for single-location perceptual tasks and the prediction given by classic signal detection theory. In addition, we show that simple majority voting obtains inferior accuracy benefits for visual search relative to averaging and weighted averaging of observers' confidences. Analysis of gaze behavior across observers suggests that the greater collective integration benefits for visual search arise from an interaction between the foveated properties of the human visual system (high foveal acuity and low peripheral acuity) and observers' nonexhaustive search patterns, and can be predicted by an extended signal detection theory framework with trial to trial sampling from a varying mixture of high and low target detectabilities across observers (SDT-MIX). These findings advance our theoretical understanding of how to predict and enhance the wisdom of crowds for real world search tasks and could apply more generally to any decision-making task for which the minority of group members with high expertise varies from decision to decision.group decision rules | signal detection theory | ideal observer analyses | wisdom of crowds G roups of insects (1-4), fish (5-7), birds (8-10), mammals (11)(12)(13)(14), and primates (15-18) have been shown to aggregate their individual judgments into group decisions for various tasks (19,20). Although some groups seem to have leaders who make decisions alone on behalf of their groups (17,(21)(22)(23), it is difficult for individuals to outperform even simple aggregations of the entire group's individual judgments (4,7,9,10,19,(24)(25)(26). Perhaps that is why humans often make important decisions as a group (27-29), even if the only expedient (30, 31) but effective (24, 31-34) group decision mechanism is to use the simple majority voting rule (35).Previous human studies have shown that combining people's judgments into group decisions can lead to accuracy benefits in various domains, such as estimation (36-38), detection (34,(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44), identification (45-47), and prediction (46, 48-52), a phenomenon known as the wisdom of crowds (53). For artificial tasks, where perceptual decisions are limited only by noise that is internal to each observer's brain (i.e., no external noise), the maximum wisdom of crowd benefits are specified by the idealized signal dete...

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“…By raising the activity of both signal producers and receivers, multiple mating expedites the transfer among nest mates of information about available resources. The advantage of such amplification of communication is also observed in simultaneous group departures that are characteristic of gorillas (Stewart and Harcourt, 1994) and flocks of whooper swans (Black, 1988). Initially, a few individuals make their intention to leave known through the production of signals, which are imitated by other members of the group who are similarly motivated to leave.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Recruitment-dance signals draw larger audiences when honey bee colonies have multiple patrilines

2010

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Honey bee queens (Apis mellifera) who mate with multiple males produce colonies that are filled with numerous genetically distinct patrilines of workers. A genetically diverse colony benefits from an enhanced foraging effort, fuelled in part by an increase in the number of recruitment signals that are produced by foragers. However, the influence of patriline diversity on the attention paid to these signals by audiences of potentially receptive workers remains unexplored. To determine whether recruitment dances performed by foragers in multiple-patriline colonies attract a greater number of dance followers than dances in colonies that lack patriline diversity, we trained workers from multiple-and singlepatriline colonies to forage in a greenhouse and monitored their dance-following activity back in the hives. On average, more workers followed a dance if it was performed in a multiple-patriline colony rather than a single-patriline colony (33% increase), and for a greater number of dance circuits per follower. Furthermore, dance-following workers in multiple-patriline colonies were more likely to exit their hive after following a dance, although this did not translate to a difference in colony-level exit rates between treatment types. Recruiting nest mates to profitable food sources through dance communication is critical to a colony's foraging success and long-term fitness; polyandrous queens produce colonies that benefit not only from increased recruitment signalling, but also from the generation of larger and more attentive audiences of signal receivers. This study highlights the importance of integrating responses of both signal senders and receivers to understand more fully the success of animal-communication systems.

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Preflight Signalling in Swans: A Mechanism for Group Cohesion and Flock Formation

Cited by 103 publications

References 9 publications

Ants work harder during consensus decision-making in small groups

Ants work harder during consensus decision-making in small groups

The wisdom of crowds for visual search

Recruitment-dance signals draw larger audiences when honey bee colonies have multiple patrilines

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