Human third-party observers accurately track fighting skill and vigour along their unique paths to victory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Robert Caton ◽  
Barnaby Dixson
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Contest Competition ◽  
Contest Theory ◽  
Fighting Ability ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Holding Power ◽  
Animal Contest ◽  
Resource Holding Power ◽  
Unique Path

Sexual selection via male-male contest competition has shaped the evolution of agonistic displays, weaponry, and fighting styles, and is further argued to have shaped human psychological mechanisms to detect, process, and respond appropriately to cues of fighting ability. Drawing on the largest fight-specific dataset to date across the sports and biological sciences (N = 2,765), we examined how different indicators of fighting ability in humans reflect unique paths to victory and indicate different forms of perceived and actual resource-holding power (RHP). Overall, we discovered that: (1) both striking skill and vigour, and grappling skill and vigour, individually and collectively predict RHP; (2) different RHP indicators are distinguished by a unique path to victory (e.g., striking skill is a knockout-typical strategy, whereas grappling vigour is a submission-typical strategy); and (3) third-party observers accurately track fighting skill and vigour along their unique paths to victory. Our argument that different measures of RHP are associated with unique paths to victory, and third-party observers accurately track fighting vigour and skill along their unique paths to victory, advance our understanding not only of human contest competition, but animal contest theory more broadly.

scholarly journals Perceived and actual fighting ability: determinants of success by decision, knockout or submission in human combat sports

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. 20200443
Author(s):  
Sarah M. Lane ◽  
Mark Briffa
Keyword(s):  
Martial Arts ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Combat Sports ◽  
Resource Holding Potential ◽  
Contest Theory ◽  
Fighting Ability ◽  
Animal Contest ◽  
Performance Traits

Animal contest theory assumes individuals to possess accurate information about their own fighting ability or resource-holding potential (RHP) and, under some models, that of their opponent. However, owing to the difficulty of disentangling perceived and actual RHP in animals, how accurately individuals are able to assess RHP remains relatively unknown. Furthermore, it is not just individuals within a fight that evaluate RHP. Third-party observers evaluate the fight performance of conspecifics in order to make behavioural decisions. In human combat sports, when fights remain unresolved at the end of the allotted time, bystanders take a more active role, with judges assigning victory based on their assessment of each fighter's performance. Here, we use fight data from mixed martial arts in order to investigate whether perceived fighting performance (judges' decisions) and actual fighting success (fights ending in knockout or submission) are based on the same performance traits, specifically striking skill and vigour. Our results indicate that both performance traits are important for victory, but that vigour is more important for fights resolved via decision, even though the effect of vigour is enhanced by skill. These results suggest that while similar traits are important for fighting success across the board, vigour is overvalued in judges' perceptions of RHP.

Aggression towards unfamiliar intruders by male lizards Eurolophosaurus nanuzae depends on contestant’s body traits: a test of the dear enemy effect

Behaviour ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 154 (6) ◽  
pp. 693-708 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo C. Quintana ◽  
Conrado A.B. Galdino
Keyword(s):  
Saving Energy ◽  
Potential Threat ◽  
Dear Enemy ◽  
Holding Power ◽  
Resource Holding Power ◽  
Dear Enemy Phenomenon ◽  
Dear Enemy Effect ◽  
Tail Condition

A reduction of territory owners’ aggression towards their neighbours in relation to the intrusion of strangers characterises the dear enemy phenomenon. Supposedly, the disparity in aggression levels of territory owners is due to a higher threat imposed by strangers compared to the threat imposed by neighbours. To evaluate the occurrence of the phenomenon in males of the small-sized lizard Eurolophosaurus nanuzae we performed a field manipulative study. We considered three models to run intrusions in males’ territories: neighbour, tailed stranger (unfamiliar) and tailless stranger intruders. Our results lend support to the presence of dear enemy for this species as residents acted more aggressively towards strangers than to neighbours. In addition, the information we provide supports the relative threat hypothesis as territory owners were more aggressive towards tailed stranger intruders than to tailless stranger intruders. In this sense, tail condition can represent a trait that signals the ‘resource holding power’ (RHP) of a lizard. Therefore, we show that beyond neighbourhood recognition, residents are able to evaluate the potential threat of stranger intruders in general, thereby extending the evolutionary gains of the dear enemy by saving energy even in the context they are expected to acts with higher costs.

scholarly journals Cybernetic combatants support the importance of duels in the evolution of extreme weapons

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1928) ◽  
pp. 20200254
Author(s):  
Murray P. Fea ◽  
Romain P. Boisseau ◽  
Douglas J. Emlen ◽  
Gregory I. Holwell
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Arms Races ◽  
Contest Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Hypothesis ◽  
Animal Contest ◽  
Interstate Conflicts ◽  
One To One ◽  
A Current

A current evolutionary hypothesis predicts that the most extreme forms of animal weaponry arise in systems where combatants fight each other one-to-one, in duels. It has also been suggested that arms races in human interstate conflicts are more likely to escalate in cases where there are only two opponents. However, directly testing whether duels matter for weapon investment is difficult in animals and impossible in interstate conflicts. Here, we test whether superior combatants experience a disproportionate advantage in duels, as compared with multi-combatant skirmishes, in a system analogous to both animal and military contests: the battles fought by artificial intelligence agents in a computer war game. We found that combatants with experimentally improved fighting power had a large advantage in duels, but that this advantage deteriorated as the complexity of the battlefield was increased by the addition of further combatants. This pattern remained under the two different forms of the advantage granted to our focal artificial intelligence (AI) combatants, and became reversed when we switched the roles to feature a weak focal AI among strong opponents. Our results suggest that one-on-one combat may trigger arms races in diverse systems. These results corroborate the outcomes of studies of both animal and interstate contests, and suggest that elements of animal contest theory may be widely applicable to arms races generally.

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