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Pelé, M., & Sueur, C. (2013). Decision-making theories: linking the disparate research areas of individual and collective cognition. Animal Cognition, 16(4), 543–556.
Abstract: In order to maximize their fitness, animals have to deal with different environmental and social factors that affect their everyday life. Although the way an animal behaves might enhance its fitness or survival in regard to one factor, it could compromise them regarding another. In the domain of decision sciences, research concerning decision making focuses on performances at the individual level but also at the collective one. However, between individual and collective decision making, different terms are used resulting in little or no connection between both research areas. In this paper, we reviewed how different branches of decision sciences study the same concept, mainly called speed-accuracy trade-off, and how the different results are on the same track in terms of showing the optimality of decisions. Whatever the level, individual or collective, each decision might be defined with three parameters: time or delay to decide, risk and accuracy. We strongly believe that more progress would be possible in this domain of research if these different branches were better linked, with an exchange of their results and theories. A growing amount of literature describes economics in humans and eco-ethology in birds making compromises between starvation, predation and reproduction. Numerous studies have been carried out on social cognition in primates but also birds and carnivores, and other publications describe market or reciprocal exchanges of commodities. We therefore hope that this paper will lead these different areas to a common decision science.
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Sueur, C., Deneubourg, J. - L., & Petit, O. (2012). From Social Network (Centralized vs. Decentralized) to Collective Decision-Making (Unshared vs. Shared Consensus). PLoS ONE, 7(2), e32566 EP -.
Abstract: <p>Relationships we have with our friends, family, or colleagues influence our personal decisions, as well as decisions we make together with others. As in human beings, despotism and egalitarian societies seem to also exist in animals. While studies have shown that social networks constrain many phenomena from amoebae to primates, we still do not know how consensus emerges from the properties of social networks in many biological systems. We created artificial social networks that represent the continuum from centralized to decentralized organization and used an agent-based model to make predictions about the patterns of consensus and collective movements we observed according to the social network. These theoretical results showed that different social networks and especially contrasted ones – star network vs. equal network – led to totally different patterns. Our model showed that, by moving from a centralized network to a decentralized one, the central individual seemed to lose its leadership in the collective movement's decisions. We, therefore, showed a link between the type of social network and the resulting consensus. By comparing our theoretical data with data on five groups of primates, we confirmed that this relationship between social network and consensus also appears to exist in animal societies.</p>
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Sueur, C., Jacobs, A., Amblard, F., Petit, O., & King, A. J. (2010). How can social network analysis improve the study of primate behavior? Am. J. Primatol., 73(8), 703–719.
Abstract: Abstract When living in a group, individuals have to make trade-offs, and compromise, in order to balance the advantages and disadvantages of group life. Strategies that enable individuals to achieve this typically affect inter-individual interactions resulting in nonrandom associations. Studying the patterns of this assortativity using social network analyses can allow us to explore how individual behavior influences what happens at the group, or population level. Understanding the consequences of these interactions at multiple scales may allow us to better understand the fitness implications for individuals. Social network analyses offer the tools to achieve this. This special issue aims to highlight the benefits of social network analysis for the study of primate behaviour, assessing it's suitability for analyzing individual social characteristics as well as group/population patterns. In this introduction to the special issue, we first introduce social network theory, then demonstrate with examples how social networks can influence individual and collective behaviors, and finally conclude with some outstanding questions for future primatological research. Am. J. Primatol. 73:703?719, 2011. ? 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
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Sueur, C., & Petit, O. (2010). Signals use by leaders in Macaca tonkeana and Macaca mulatta: group-mate recruitment and behaviour monitoring. Anim. Cogn., 13(2), 239–248.
Abstract: Abstract Animals living in groups have to make consensus decisions and communicate with each other about the time, or the direction, in which to move. In some species, the process relies on the proposition of a single individual, i.e. a first individual suggests a movement and the other group members decide whether or not to join this individual. In Tonkean (Macaca tonkeana) and rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), it has been observed that this first individual displays specific signals at departure. In this paper, we aimed to explore the function of such behaviours, i.e. if these behaviours were recruitment signals or only cues about the motivation of the first departed individual. We carried out temporal analyses and studied the latencies of the first departed individual’s behaviours and of the joining of other group members. We also assessed whether the social style of a species in terms of dominance and kinship relationships influenced the patterns of signal emissions. We then analyzed how the first departed individual decided to make a pause or to stop it according to the identities of group members that joined the collective movement. Results showed that Tonkean macaques and rhesus macaques seemed to use back-glances to monitor the joining of other group members and pauses to recruit such individuals. This was especially the case for highly socially affiliated individuals in Tonkean macaques and kin-related individuals in rhesus macaques. Moreover, back-glances and pauses disappeared when such individuals joined the first departed individual. From these results, we suggested that such behaviour could be considered intentional. Such findings could not be highlighted without temporal analyses and accurate observations on primate groups in semi-free ranging conditions.
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Sueur, C., & Petit, O. (2008). Shared or unshared consensus decision in macaques? Behav. Process., 78(1), 84–92.
Abstract: Members of a social group have to make collective decisions in order to synchronise their activities. In a shared consensus decision, all group members can take part in the decision whereas in an unshared consensus decision, one individual, usually a dominant member of the group, takes the decision for the rest of the group. It has been suggested that the type of decision-making of a species could be influenced by its social style. To investigate this further, we studied collective movements in two species with opposed social systems, the Tonkean macaque (Macaca tonkeana) and the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta). From our results, it appears that the decision to move is the result of the choices and actions of several individuals in both groups. However, this consensus decision involved nearly all group members in Tonkean macaques whereas dominant and old individuals took a prominent role in rhesus macaques. Thus, we suggest that Tonkean macaques display equally shared consensus decisions to move, whereas in the same context rhesus macaque exhibit partially shared consensus decisions. Such a difference in making a collective decision might be linked to the different social systems of the two studied species.
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Sueur, C., & Petit, O. (2008). Organization of Group Members at Departure Is Driven by Social Structure in Macaca. Int. J. Primatol., 29(4), 1085–1098.
Abstract: Abstract Researchers have often explained order of progression of group members during joint movement in terms of the influence of ecological pressures but rarely that of social constraints. We studied the order of joining by group members to a movement in semifree-ranging macaques with contrasting social systems: 1 group of Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) and 1 group of rhesus macaques (M. mulatta). We used network metrics to understand roles and associations among individuals. The way the macaques joined a movement reflected the social differences between the species in terms of dominance and kinship. Old and dominant male rhesus macaques were more often at the front of the movement, contrary to the Tonkean macaques, which exhibited no specific order. Moreover, rhesus macaques preferred to join high-ranking or related individuals, whereas Tonkean macaques based associations during joining mostly on sexual relationships with a subgroup of peripheral males.
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