Swarm intelligence in animal groups: when can a collective out-perform an expert?
Swarm intelligence in animal groups: when can a collective out-perform an expert?
复制标题
DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0015505
复制
发表时间：
2010-11-24
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
King AJ
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Katsikopoulos KV;King AJ
群居生活的一个重要的潜在优势是，动物群体中的个体可以更有效地应对不熟悉的情况，而这一优势大多被生命科学家所忽视。社会互动可以通过两种潜在机制为个体无法获得的认知问题提供解决方案：(i)个体可以汇总信息，从而增强他们的“集体认知”，或者（ii）与同类的互动可以让个体跟随特定的“领导者”，即那些掌握与手头决策特别相关信息的专家。然而，缺乏先验的、基于理论的关于哪些决策规则应该被优先选择的期望。使用一组简单的模型，我们提出了理论条件（包括群体规模和个体信息的多样性），在这些条件下，当面临二元选择时，群体应该汇总信息，或者跟随专家。我们发现，在单次决策中，专家在一系列条件下几乎总是比集体更准确。然而，对于重复决策——个人能够考虑先前决策结果的成功与否——集体的汇总信息几乎总是更好的。研究结果提高了我们对社会性动物如何处理信息和做出决策的理解，而准确性是个体适应性的关键组成部分，并为未来的实验测试提供了坚实的理论框架，在实验测试中，群体规模、个体信息的多样性和决策的可重复性可以被测量和操纵。
An important potential advantage of group-living that has been mostly neglected by life scientists is that individuals in animal groups may cope more effectively with unfamiliar situations. Social interaction can provide a solution to a cognitive problem that is not available to single individuals via two potential mechanisms: (i) individuals can aggregate information, thus augmenting their ‘collective cognition’, or (ii) interaction with conspecifics can allow individuals to follow specific ‘leaders’, those experts with information particularly relevant to the decision at hand. However, a-priori, theory-based expectations about which of these decision rules should be preferred are lacking. Using a set of simple models, we present theoretical conditions (involving group size, and diversity of individual information) under which groups should aggregate information, or follow an expert, when faced with a binary choice. We found that, in single-shot decisions, experts are almost always more accurate than the collective across a range of conditions. However, for repeated decisions – where individuals are able to consider the success of previous decision outcomes – the collective's aggregated information is almost always superior. The results improve our understanding of how social animals may process information and make decisions when accuracy is a key component of individual fitness, and provide a solid theoretical framework for future experimental tests where group size, diversity of individual information, and the repeatability of decisions can be measured and manipulated.
登录
查看更多内容
影响因子：
3.3
作者：
King AJ;Cowlishaw G
通讯作者：
Cowlishaw G
DOI：
10.1098/rstb.2008.0233
发表时间：
2009-03-27
影响因子：
6.3
作者：
Dyer, John R. G.;Johansson, Anders;Krause, Jens
通讯作者：
Krause, Jens
影响因子：
9.2
作者：
Biro, Dora;Sumpter, David J. T.;Guilford, Tim
通讯作者：
Guilford, Tim
影响因子：
2.5
作者：
Reimer, T;Katsikopoulos, KV
通讯作者：
Katsikopoulos, KV
影响因子：
3.7
作者：
Rands SA
通讯作者：
Rands SA