Collective learning and optimal consensus decisions in social animal groups.

Learning has been studied extensively in the context of isolated individuals. However, many organisms are social and consequently make decisions both individually and as part of a collective. Reaching consensus necessarily means that a single option is chosen by the group, even when there are dissen...

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Autores principales:	Albert B Kao, Noam Miller, Colin Torney, Andrew Hartnett, Iain D Couzin
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2014
Materias:	Biology (General) QH301-705.5
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/e55a354893e346cd984d8b56b9095eb5
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:e55a354893e346cd984d8b56b9095eb52021-11-25T05:40:53ZCollective learning and optimal consensus decisions in social animal groups.1553-734X1553-735810.1371/journal.pcbi.1003762https://doaj.org/article/e55a354893e346cd984d8b56b9095eb52014-08-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/25101642/pdf/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1553-734Xhttps://doaj.org/toc/1553-7358Learning has been studied extensively in the context of isolated individuals. However, many organisms are social and consequently make decisions both individually and as part of a collective. Reaching consensus necessarily means that a single option is chosen by the group, even when there are dissenting opinions. This decision-making process decouples the otherwise direct relationship between animals' preferences and their experiences (the outcomes of decisions). Instead, because an individual's learned preferences influence what others experience, and therefore learn about, collective decisions couple the learning processes between social organisms. This introduces a new, and previously unexplored, dynamical relationship between preference, action, experience and learning. Here we model collective learning within animal groups that make consensus decisions. We reveal how learning as part of a collective results in behavior that is fundamentally different from that learned in isolation, allowing grouping organisms to spontaneously (and indirectly) detect correlations between group members' observations of environmental cues, adjust strategy as a function of changing group size (even if that group size is not known to the individual), and achieve a decision accuracy that is very close to that which is provably optimal, regardless of environmental contingencies. Because these properties make minimal cognitive demands on individuals, collective learning, and the capabilities it affords, may be widespread among group-living organisms. Our work emphasizes the importance and need for theoretical and experimental work that considers the mechanism and consequences of learning in a social context.Albert B KaoNoam MillerColin TorneyAndrew HartnettIain D CouzinPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleBiology (General)QH301-705.5ENPLoS Computational Biology, Vol 10, Iss 8, p e1003762 (2014)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Biology (General) QH301-705.5
spellingShingle	Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Albert B Kao Noam Miller Colin Torney Andrew Hartnett Iain D Couzin Collective learning and optimal consensus decisions in social animal groups.
description	Learning has been studied extensively in the context of isolated individuals. However, many organisms are social and consequently make decisions both individually and as part of a collective. Reaching consensus necessarily means that a single option is chosen by the group, even when there are dissenting opinions. This decision-making process decouples the otherwise direct relationship between animals' preferences and their experiences (the outcomes of decisions). Instead, because an individual's learned preferences influence what others experience, and therefore learn about, collective decisions couple the learning processes between social organisms. This introduces a new, and previously unexplored, dynamical relationship between preference, action, experience and learning. Here we model collective learning within animal groups that make consensus decisions. We reveal how learning as part of a collective results in behavior that is fundamentally different from that learned in isolation, allowing grouping organisms to spontaneously (and indirectly) detect correlations between group members' observations of environmental cues, adjust strategy as a function of changing group size (even if that group size is not known to the individual), and achieve a decision accuracy that is very close to that which is provably optimal, regardless of environmental contingencies. Because these properties make minimal cognitive demands on individuals, collective learning, and the capabilities it affords, may be widespread among group-living organisms. Our work emphasizes the importance and need for theoretical and experimental work that considers the mechanism and consequences of learning in a social context.
format	article
author	Albert B Kao Noam Miller Colin Torney Andrew Hartnett Iain D Couzin
author_facet	Albert B Kao Noam Miller Colin Torney Andrew Hartnett Iain D Couzin
author_sort	Albert B Kao
title	Collective learning and optimal consensus decisions in social animal groups.
title_short	Collective learning and optimal consensus decisions in social animal groups.
title_full	Collective learning and optimal consensus decisions in social animal groups.
title_fullStr	Collective learning and optimal consensus decisions in social animal groups.
title_full_unstemmed	Collective learning and optimal consensus decisions in social animal groups.
title_sort	collective learning and optimal consensus decisions in social animal groups.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2014
url	https://doaj.org/article/e55a354893e346cd984d8b56b9095eb5
work_keys_str_mv	AT albertbkao collectivelearningandoptimalconsensusdecisionsinsocialanimalgroups AT noammiller collectivelearningandoptimalconsensusdecisionsinsocialanimalgroups AT colintorney collectivelearningandoptimalconsensusdecisionsinsocialanimalgroups AT andrewhartnett collectivelearningandoptimalconsensusdecisionsinsocialanimalgroups AT iaindcouzin collectivelearningandoptimalconsensusdecisionsinsocialanimalgroups
_version_	1718414550992158720

Collective learning and optimal consensus decisions in social animal groups.

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