scholarly journals Exploring the costs and benefits of social information use: an appraisal of current experimental evidence

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1567) ◽  
pp. 949-957 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume Rieucau ◽  
Luc-Alain Giraldeau
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Information Quality ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Motor Patterns ◽  
Informational Cascades ◽  
Inadvertent Social Information ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Group Members

Research on social learning has focused traditionally on whether animals possess the cognitive ability to learn novel motor patterns from tutors. More recently, social learning has included the use of others as sources of inadvertent social information. This type of social learning seems more taxonomically widespread and its use can more readily be approached as an economic decision. Social sampling information, however, can be tricky to use and calls for a more lucid appraisal of its costs. In this four-part review, we address these costs. Firstly, we address the possibility that only a fraction of group members are actually providing social information at any one time. Secondly, we review experimental research which shows that animals are circumspect about social information use. Thirdly, we consider the cases where social information can lead to incorrect decisions and finally, we review studies investigating the effect of social information quality. We address the possibility that using social information or not is not a binary decision and present results of a study showing that nutmeg mannikins combine both sources of information, a condition that can lead to the establishment of informational cascades. We discuss the importance of empirically investigating the economics of social information use.

scholarly journals The hidden effect of inadvertent social information use on fluctuating predator–prey dynamics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán Tóth
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Biotic Interactions ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Population Level ◽  
High Amplitude ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Predator Prey ◽  
Inadvertent Social Information ◽  
Social Information Use

AbstractUnderstanding biotic interactions and abiotic forces that govern population regulation is crucial for predicting stability from both theoretical and applied perspectives. In recent years, social information has been proposed to profoundly affect the dynamics of populations and facilitate the coexistence of interacting species. However, we have limited knowledge about how social information use influences cyclic and non-cyclic fluctuations of populations and if any population-level effects can be expected in species where individuals do not form social groups. In this study, I built individual-based models in a factorial design to investigate how predator avoidance behaviour and associated inadvertent social information (ISI) use alters the predictions of classical predator–prey population models in non-grouping (e.g., randomly moving) animals. Simulation results showed that ISI use in prey stabilized population dynamics by disrupting high-amplitude cyclic fluctuations in both predator and prey populations. Moreover, it also decreased the strength of the negative feedback of second-order dependence between predator and prey. I propose that if social cues are commonly used sources of information in animals regardless of the level of social organization, then similar social information-mediated effects on trophic interactions and population dynamics may be prevalent in natural communities.

scholarly journals Reproductive skew affects social information use

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 182084 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Smolla ◽  
Charlotte Rosher ◽  
R. Tucker Gilman ◽  
Susanne Shultz
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Reproductive Skew ◽  
The Other ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Social Information Use

Individuals vary in their propensity to use social learning, the engine of cultural evolution, to acquire information about their environment. The causes of those differences, however, remain largely unclear. Using an agent-based model, we tested the hypothesis that as a result of reproductive skew differences in energetic requirements for reproduction affect the value of social information. We found that social learning is associated with lower variance in yield and is more likely to evolve in risk-averse low-skew populations than in high-skew populations. Reproductive skew may also result in sex differences in social information use, as empirical data suggest that females are often more risk-averse than males. To explore how risk may affect sex differences in learning strategies, we simulated learning in sexually reproducing populations where one sex experiences more reproductive skew than the other. When both sexes compete for the same resources, they tend to adopt extreme strategies: the sex with greater reproductive skew approaches pure individual learning and the other approaches pure social learning. These results provide insight into the conditions that promote individual and species level variation in social learning and so may affect cultural evolution.

scholarly journals Pre- and post-natal stress have opposing effects on social information use

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 20121088 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neeltje J. Boogert ◽  
Cedric Zimmer ◽  
Karen A. Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Social Foraging ◽  
Short Term Exposure ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Food Conditions ◽  
Opposing Effects ◽  
Developmental Conditions

Theoretical models of social learning predict that animals should copy others in variable environments where resource availability is relatively unpredictable. Although short-term exposure to unpredictable conditions in adulthood has been shown to encourage social learning, virtually nothing is known concerning whether and how developmental conditions affect social information use. Unpredictable food availability increases levels of the stress hormone corticosterone (CORT). In birds, CORT can be transferred from the mother to her eggs, and have downstream behavioural effects. We tested how pre-natal CORT elevation through egg injection, and chick post-natal development in unpredictable food conditions, affected social information use in adult Japanese quail ( Coturnix japonica ). Pre-natal CORT exposure encouraged quail to copy the foraging decisions of demonstrators in video playbacks, whereas post-natal food unpredictability led individuals to avoid the demonstrated food source. An individual's exposure to stress and uncertainty during development can thus affect its use of social foraging information in adulthood. However, the stressor's nature and developmental timing determine whether an adult will tend to copy conspecifics or do the opposite. Developmental effects on social information use might thus help explain individual differences in social foraging tactics and leadership.

Predator inadvertent social information use favours reduced clumping of its prey

Oikos ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 119 (2) ◽  
pp. 286-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Hamblin ◽  
Kimberley J. Mathot ◽  
Julie Morand-Ferron ◽  
Joseph J. Nocera ◽  
Guillaume Rieucau ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Inadvertent Social Information ◽  
Social Information Use

scholarly journals Reproductive skew affects social information use

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Smolla ◽  
Charlotte Rosher ◽  
R. Tucker Gilman ◽  
Susanne Shultz
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Reproductive Skew ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Simulated Learning ◽  
Social Information Use

Individuals vary in their propensity to use social learning, the engine of cultural evolution, to acquire information about their environment. The causes of those differences, however, remain largely unclear. Individuals that experience high reproductive skew are expected to favour high-risk strategies, whereas those that experience low reproductive skew are expected to favour risk-averse strategies. Using an agent-based model, we tested the hypothesis that differences in energetic requirements for reproduction affect the value of social information. We found that social learning is associated with lower variance in yield and is more likely to evolve in risk-averse low-skew populations than in high-skew populations. Reproductive skew may also result in sex differences in social information use, as females tend to be more risk averse than males. To explore how risk may affect sex differences in learning strategies, we simulated learning in sexually reproducing populations. Where both sexes share the same environment they adopt more extreme learning strategies, approaching pure individual or social learning. These results provide insight into the conditions that promote individual and species level variation in social learning and so may affect cultural evolution.

scholarly journals Higher frequency of social learning in China than in the West shows cultural variation in the dynamics of cultural evolution

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1798) ◽  
pp. 20142209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mesoudi ◽  
Lei Chang ◽  
Keelin Murray ◽  
Hui Jing Lu
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Successive Generations ◽  
British People

Cultural evolutionary models have identified a range of conditions under which social learning (copying others) is predicted to be adaptive relative to asocial learning (learning on one's own), particularly in humans where socially learned information can accumulate over successive generations. However, cultural evolution and behavioural economics experiments have consistently shown apparently maladaptive under-utilization of social information in Western populations. Here we provide experimental evidence of cultural variation in people's use of social learning, potentially explaining this mismatch. People in mainland China showed significantly more social learning than British people in an artefact-design task designed to assess the adaptiveness of social information use. People in Hong Kong, and Chinese immigrants in the UK, resembled British people in their social information use, suggesting a recent shift in these groups from social to asocial learning due to exposure to Western culture. Finally, Chinese mainland participants responded less than other participants to increased environmental change within the task. Our results suggest that learning strategies in humans are culturally variable and not genetically fixed, necessitating the study of the ‘social learning of social learning strategies' whereby the dynamics of cultural evolution are responsive to social processes, such as migration, education and globalization.

scholarly journals Individual differences in learning behaviours in humans: Asocial exploration tendency does not predict reliance on social learning

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wataru Toyokawa ◽  
Yoshimatsu Saito ◽  
Tatsuya Kameda
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Exploration Exploitation

AbstractA number of empirical studies have suggested that individual differences in asocial exploration tendencies in animals may be related to those in social information use. However, because the ‘exploration tendency’ in most previous studies has been measured without considering the exploration-exploitation trade-off, it is yet hard to conclude that the animal asocial ‘exploration-exploitation’ tendency may be tied to social information use. Here, we studied human learning behaviour in both asocial and social multi-armed bandit tasks. By fitting reinforcement learning models including asocial and/or social decision processes, we measured each individual’s (1) asocial exploration tendency and (2) social information use. We found consistent individual differences in the exploration tendency in the asocial tasks. We also found substantive heterogeneity in the adopted learning strategies in the social task: One-third of participants were most likely to have used the copy-when-uncertain strategy, while the remaining two-thirds were most likely to have relied only on asocial learning. However, we found no significant individual association between the exploration frequency in the asocial task and the use of the social learning strategy in the social task. Our results suggest that the social learning strategies may be independent from the asocial search strategies in humans.

scholarly journals Social information use in adolescents: the impact of adults, peers and household composition

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Molleman ◽  
Patricia Kanngiesser ◽  
Wouter van den Bos
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Household Composition ◽  
Estimation Task ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Simple Estimation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

Social learning strategies are key for making adaptive decisions, but their ontogeny remains poorly understood. The authors investigate how social information use depends on its source (adults vs. peer), and how it is shaped by adolescents’ household composition (extended vs. nuclear), a factor known to modulate social development. Using a simple estimation task, we show that social information strongly impacts adolescents’ (N=256) behaviour, especially when its source is an adult. However, social information use does not depend on household composition: the relative impact of adults and peers was similar in adolescents from both household types. Furthermore, adolescents were found to directly copy others’ estimates surprisingly frequently. This study provides novel insights into adolescents’ social information use and contributes to understanding the ontogeny of social learning strategies.

Experiential effects on mirror systems and social learning: Implications for social intelligence

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon M. Reader
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Associative Learning ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Developmental History ◽  
Optimal Response ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Experiential Effects

AbstractInvestigations of biases and experiential effects on social learning, social information use, and mirror systems can usefully inform one another. Unconstrained learning is predicted to shape mirror systems when the optimal response to an observed act varies, but constraints may emerge when immediate error-free responses are required and evolutionary or developmental history reliably predicts the optimal response. Given the power of associative learning, such constraints may be rare.

scholarly journals Rumour propagation and the eco-evolutionary dynamics of social information use

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1875) ◽  
pp. 20180088 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Suire ◽  
Minus van Baalen
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Informational Cascades ◽  
Transmission Mechanisms ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Different Sources

Information is a crucial currency for living organisms as it allows them to adjust their behaviour to environmental fluctuations. Thus, natural selection should have favoured the capacity of collecting information from different sources, including social interactions whereby individuals could quickly gain reliable information. However, such conditions may also favour the gathering of potentially detrimental information, such as false or misinterpreted accounts of environmental and social phenomena such as rumours, which may spread via informational cascades. We applied ecological and evolutionary principles to investigate how the propagation of social information at a populational level affects the propensity to assimilate it, here defined as the gullibilty. Our results show that the evolution of an individual's susceptibility to assimilate information strongly depends on eco-evolutionary feedbacks, in particular when both useful and detrimental information circulate. We discuss our results regarding the different information transmission mechanisms involved with particular attention to specific cases of social learning.

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