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| Author |
Sumpter, D.J.T. |
| Title |
The principles of collective animal behaviour |
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Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci. |
| Volume |
361 |
Issue |
1465 |
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5-22 |
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In recent years, the concept of self-organization has been used to understand collective behaviour of animals. The central tenet of self-organization is that simple repeated interactions between individuals can produce complex adaptive patterns at the level of the group. Inspiration comes from patterns seen in physical systems, such as spiralling chemical waves, which arise without complexity at the level of the individual units of which the system is composed. The suggestion is that biological structures such as termite mounds, ant trail networks and even human crowds can be explained in terms of repeated interactions between the animals and their environment, without invoking individual complexity. Here, I review cases in which the self-organization approach has been successful in explaining collective behaviour of animal groups and societies. Ant pheromone trail networks, aggregation of cockroaches, the applause of opera audiences and the migration of fish schools have all been accurately described in terms of individuals following simple sets of rules. Unlike the simple units composing physical systems, however, animals are themselves complex entities, and other examples of collective behaviour, such as honey bee foraging with its myriad of dance signals and behavioural cues, cannot be fully understood in terms of simple individuals alone. I argue that the key to understanding collective behaviour lies in identifying the principles of the behavioural algorithms followed by individual animals and of how information flows between the animals. These principles, such as positive feedback, response thresholds and individual integrity, are repeatedly observed in very different animal societies. The future of collective behaviour research lies in classifying these principles, establishing the properties they produce at a group level and asking why they have evolved in so many different and distinct natural systems. Ultimately, this research could inform not only our understanding of animal societies, but also the principles by which we organize our own society. |
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10.1098/rstb.2005.1733 |
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yes |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5145 |
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Emery, N.J.; Seed, A.M.; von Bayern, A.M.P.; Clayton, N.S. |
| Title |
Cognitive adaptations of social bonding in birds |
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Journal Article |
| Year |
2007 |
Publication |
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci. |
| Volume |
362 |
Issue |
1480 |
Pages |
489-505 |
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The “social intelligence hypothesis” was originally conceived to explain how primates may have evolved their superior intellect and large brains when compared with other animals. Although some birds such as corvids may be intellectually comparable to apes, the same relationship between sociality and brain size seen in primates has not been found for birds, possibly suggesting a role for other non-social factors. But bird sociality is different from primate sociality. Most monkeys and apes form stable groups, whereas most birds are monogamous, and only form large flocks outside of the breeding season. Some birds form lifelong pair bonds and these species tend to have the largest brains relative to body size. Some of these species are known for their intellectual abilities (e.g. corvids and parrots), while others are not (e.g. geese and albatrosses). Although socio-ecological factors may explain some of the differences in brain size and intelligence between corvids/parrots and geese/albatrosses, we predict that the type and quality of the bonded relationship is also critical. Indeed, we present empirical evidence that rook and jackdaw partnerships resemble primate and dolphin alliances. Although social interactions within a pair may seem simple on the surface, we argue that cognition may play an important role in the maintenance of long-term relationships, something we name as “relationship intelligence”. |
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refbase @ user @ |
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3528 |
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Byrne, R.W. |
| Title |
Culture in great apes: using intricate complexity in feeding skills to trace the evolutionary origin of human technical prowess |
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Journal Article |
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2007 |
Publication |
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci. |
| Volume |
362 |
Issue |
1480 |
Pages |
577-585 |
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Geographical cataloguing of traits, as used in human ethnography, has led to the description of “culture” in some non-human great apes. Culture, in these terms, is detected as a pattern of local ignorance resulting from environmental constraints on knowledge transmission. However, in many cases, the geographical variations may alternatively be explained by ecology. Social transmission of information can reliably be identified in many other animal species, by experiment or distinctive patterns in distribution; but the excitement of detecting culture in great apes derives from the possibility of understanding the evolution of cumulative technological culture in humans. Given this interest, I argue that great ape research should concentrate on technically complex behaviour patterns that are ubiquitous within a local population; in these cases, a wholly non-social ontogeny is highly unlikely. From this perspective, cultural transmission has an important role in the elaborate feeding skills of all species of great ape, in conveying the “gist” or organization of skills. In contrast, social learning is unlikely to be responsible for local stylistic differences, which are apt to reflect sensitive adaptations to ecology. |
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3527 |
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Mithen, S. |
| Title |
Did farming arise from a misapplication of social intelligence? |
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Journal Article |
| Year |
2007 |
Publication |
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci. |
| Volume |
362 |
Issue |
1480 |
Pages |
705-718 |
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The origins of farming is the defining event of human history – the one turning point that has resulted in modern humans having a quite different type of lifestyle and cognition to all other animals and past types of humans. With the economic basis provided by farming, human individuals and societies have developed types of material culture that greatly augment powers of memory and computation, extending the human mental capacity far beyond that which the brain alone can provide. Archaeologists have long debated and discussed why people began living in settled communities and became dependent on cultivated plants and animals, which soon evolved into domesticated forms. One of the most intriguing explanations was proposed more than 20 years ago not by an archaeologist but by a psychologist: Nicholas Humphrey suggested that farming arose from the “misapplication of social intelligence”. I explore this idea in relation to recent discoveries and archaeological interpretations in the Near East, arguing that social intelligence has indeed played a key role in the origin of farming and hence the emergence of the modern world. |
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3529 |
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Dyer, J.R.G.; Johansson, A.; Helbing, D.; Couzin, I.D.; Krause, J. |
| Title |
Leadership, consensus decision making and collective behaviour in humans |
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Journal Article |
| Year |
2009 |
Publication |
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci. |
| Volume |
364 |
Issue |
1518 |
Pages |
781-789 |
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* leadership * consensus decision making * collective behaviour * human group |
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This paper reviews the literature on leadership in vertebrate groups, including recent work on human groups, before presenting the results of three new experiments looking at leadership and decision making in small and large human groups. In experiment 1, we find that both group size and the presence of uninformed individuals can affect the speed with which small human groups (eight people) decide between two opposing directional preferences and the likelihood of the group splitting. In experiment 2, we show that the spatial positioning of informed individuals within small human groups (10 people) can affect the speed and accuracy of group motion. We find that having a mixture of leaders positioned in the centre and on the edge of a group increases the speed and accuracy with which the group reaches their target. In experiment 3, we use large human crowds (100 and 200 people) to demonstrate that the trends observed from earlier work using small human groups can be applied to larger crowds. We find that only a small minority of informed individuals is needed to guide a large uninformed group. These studies build upon important theoretical and empirical work on leadership and decision making in animal groups. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5122 |
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Tommasi, L. |
| Title |
Mechanisms and functions of brain and behavioural asymmetries |
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Journal Article |
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2009 |
Publication |
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci. |
| Volume |
364 |
Issue |
1519 |
Pages |
855-859 |
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For almost a century the field of brain and behavioural asymmetries has been dominated by studies on humans, resting on the evidence that the anatomical structures underlying language functions are asymmetrical, and that human handedness is lateralized at the population level. Today, there is not only evidence of population-level lateralization of brain and behaviour across a variety of vertebrate and invertebrate species, but also a growing consensus that the comparative analysis of the environmental and developmental factors that give origin to neural and behavioural laterality in animal models, together with theoretical analyses of their costs and benefits, will be crucial for understanding the evolutionary pathways that led to such a multifaceted phenomenon. The present theme issue provides a survey of theoretical, review and research work cutting across the biological and the cognitive sciences, focusing on various species of fishes, birds and primates (including humans) and emphasizing an integrative approach to the study of lateralization encompassing neural, behavioural, cognitive, developmental and environmental aspects. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5340 |
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Ghirlanda, S.; Frasnelli, E.; Vallortigara, G. |
| Title |
Intraspecific competition and coordination in the evolution of lateralization |
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Journal Article |
| Year |
2009 |
Publication |
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci. |
| Volume |
364 |
Issue |
1519 |
Pages |
861-866 |
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Recent studies have revealed a variety of left–right asymmetries among vertebrates and invertebrates. In many species, left- and right-lateralized individuals coexist, but in unequal numbers (‘population-level’ lateralization). It has been argued that brain lateralization increases individual efficiency (e.g. avoiding unnecessary duplication of neural circuitry and reducing interference between functions), thus counteracting the ecological disadvantages of lateral biases in behaviour (making individual behaviour more predictable to other organisms). However, individual efficiency does not require a definite proportion of left- and right-lateralized individuals. Thus, such arguments do not explain population-level lateralization. We have previously shown that, in the context of prey–predator interactions, population-level lateralization can arise as an evolutionarily stable strategy when individually asymmetrical organisms must coordinate their behaviour with that of other asymmetrical organisms. Here, we extend our model showing that populations consisting of left- and right-lateralized individuals in unequal numbers can be evolutionarily stable, based solely on strategic factors arising from the balance between antagonistic (competitive) and synergistic (cooperative) interactions. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5346 |
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Daisley, J.N.; Mascalzoni, E.; Rosa-Salva, O.; Rugani, R.; Regolin, L. |
| Title |
Lateralization of social cognition in the domestic chicken (Gallus gallus) |
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Journal Article |
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2009 |
Publication |
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci. |
| Volume |
364 |
Issue |
1519 |
Pages |
965-981 |
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In this paper, we report on the ongoing work in our laboratories on the effect of lateralization produced by light exposure in the egg on social cognition in the domestic chick (Gallus gallus). The domestic chick possesses a lateralized visual system. This has effects on the chick's perception towards and interaction with its environment. This includes its ability to live successfully within a social group. We show that there is a tendency for right brain hemisphere dominance when performing social cognitive actions. As such, chicks show a left hemispatial bias for approaching a signalled target object, tend to perceive gaze and faces of human-like masks more effectively when using their left eye, are able to inhibit a pecking response more effectively when viewing a neighbour tasting a bitter substance with their left eye, and are better able to perform a transitive inference task when exposed to light in the egg and when forced to use their left eye only compared to dark-hatched or right eye chicks. Some of these effects were sex specific, with male chicks tending to show an increased effect of lateralization on their behaviours. These data are discussed in terms of overall social cognition in group living. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5371 |
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Andrew, R.J.; Osorio, D.; Budaev, S. |
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Light during embryonic development modulates patterns of lateralization strongly and similarly in both zebrafish and chick |
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Journal Article |
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2009 |
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Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci. |
| Volume |
364 |
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1519 |
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983-989 |
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Some aspects of lateralization are widespread. This is clear for the association between left-eye (LE) use and readiness to respond intensely to releasing stimuli presented by others, which has been found in representatives of all major groups of tetrapods and in fishes. In the chick, this behavioural asymmetry is linked developmentally to greater ability to sustain response against distracting stimuli with right-eye (RE) use, in that both reverse with the reversal of the normal RE exposure to light. In the zebrafish, the same two asymmetries (normally) have similar associations with the LE and the RE, and both also reverse together (owing to epithalamic reversal). Here, we show that light exposure early in development is needed in zebrafish to generate both asymmetries. Dark development largely abolishes both the enhanced abilities, confirming their linkage. Resemblance to the chick is increased by the survival in the chick, after dark development, of higher ability to assess familiarity of complex stimuli when using the LE. A somewhat similar ability survives in dark-developed zebrafish. Here, LE use causes lesser reliance on a single recent experience than on longer term past experience in the assessment of novelty. Such resemblances between a fish and a bird suggest that we should look not only for resemblances between different groups of vertebrates in the most common overall pattern of lateralization, but also for possible resemblances in the nature of inter-individual variation and in the way in which it is generated during development. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5370 |
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Call, J. |
| Title |
Beyond learning fixed rules and social cues: abstraction in the social arena |
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2003 |
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Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci. |
| Volume |
358 |
Issue |
1435 |
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1189-1196 |
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Abstraction is a central idea in many areas of physical comparative cognition such as categorization, numerical competence or problem solving. This idea, however, has rarely been applied to comparative social cognition. In this paper, I propose that the notion of abstraction can be applied to the social arena and become an important tool to investigate the social cognition and behaviour processes in animals. To make this point, I present recent evidence showing that chimpanzees know about what others can see and about what others intend. These data do not fit either low-level mechanisms based on stimulus-response associations or high-level explanations based on metarepresentational mechanisms such as false belief attribution. Instead, I argue that social abstraction, in particular the development of concepts such as seeing in others, is key to explaining the behaviour of our closest relative in a variety of situations. |
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