March-ing to the beat of a Maverick Drummer: insights from John Boyd to inform behavioral perspectives

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of James G. March’s key ideas and extend and integrate them with the works and ideas of John Boyd, whose work is highly relevant to, yet neglected by, behavioral and evolutionary perspectives on decision-making, organizations and strategy. Design/methodology/approach This paper integrates and synthesizes ideas in behavioral organization studies with those of John Boyd. Findings The authors suggest that when integrated, Boydian and Marchian ideas can enrich the understanding of particular ideas and mechanisms identified in behavioral organization studies and help broaden the intellectual and interdisciplinary range of the field in consonance with March’s vision for it. Originality/value The authors combine and integrate ideas central to the field of organization studies with those of an “outsider.”

Emergent behavioral organization in heterogeneous groups of a social insect

The composition of social groups has profound effects on their function, from collective decision-making to foraging efficiency. But few social systems afford sufficient control over group composition to precisely quantify its effects on individual and collective behavior. Here we combine experimental and theoretical approaches to study the effect of group composition on individual behavior and division of labor (DOL) in a social insect. Experimentally, we use automated behavioral tracking to monitor 120 colonies of the clonal raider ant, Ooceraea biroi, with controlled variation in three key correlates of social insect behavior: genotype, age, and morphology. We find that each of these sources of heterogeneity generates a distinct pattern of behavioral organization, including the amplification or dampening of inherent behavioral differences in colonies with mixed types. Theoretically, we use a well-studied model of DOL to explore potential mechanisms underlying the experimental findings. We find that the simplest implementation of this model, which assumes that heterogeneous individuals differ only in response thresholds, could only partially recapitulate the empirically observed patterns of behavior. However, the full spectrum of observed phenomena was recapitulated by extending the model to incorporate two factors that are biologically meaningful but theoretically rarely considered: variation among workers in task performance efficiency and among larvae in task demand. Our results thus show that different sources of heterogeneity within social groups can generate different, sometimes non-intuitive, behavioral effects, but that relatively simple models can capture these dynamics and thereby begin to elucidate the basic organizational principles of DOL in social insects.Significance StatementWhen individuals interact in an aggregate, many factors that are not known a priori affect group dynamics. A social group will therefore show emergent properties that cannot easily be predicted from how its members behave in isolation. This problem is exacerbated in mixed groups, where different individuals have different behavioral tendencies. Here we describe different facets of collective behavioral organization in mixed groups of the clonal raider ant, and show that a simple theoretical model can capture even non-intuitive aspects of the behavioral data. These results begin to reveal the principles underlying emergent behavioral organization in social insects. Importantly, our insights might apply to complex biological systems more generally and be used to help engineer collective behavior in artificial systems.

Microstructure of Ingestive Behavior in Mus Musculus

ABSTRACTWe describe a novel quantitative home cage monitoring (HCM) approach for dissecting spontaneous patterns of ingestive and locomotor behaviors into a hierarchically organized series of behavioral facets or endophenotypes. Fine-grained analyses of a large multimodal 16-strain behavioral dataset collected from 169 mice revealed bouts of feeding, drinking and locomotor behaviors occurring within animals’ Active States. We have automated the detection of these bouts and their discrete properties including bout sizes, rates, durations, and intensities. We have developed a hierarchically organized model of behavioral organization enabling analysis of relationships among Active/Inactive State properties and those of feeding, drinking and locomotor bouts. Robust and analogous patterns of interrelationships among these endophenotypes were found for feeding, drinking behaviors, and these differed markedly from those for locomotor behaviors. For feeding and drinking, patterns of reciprocal relationships were observed for pairs of endophenotypes at multiple hierarchical levels. Moreover, endophenotype variability was highest at lowest hierarchical levels progressively diminished at higher levels, so that variability of gross levels of food and water intake were much less than those of their lower level determinants. By contrast, interrelationships among locomotor endophenotypes differed markedly from those of ingestive behavior. Altogether, these findings raise the possibility that behavioral regulation of food and water intake may make an important contribution to the homeostatic maintenance of energy and volume balance.

Three Levels of Consciousness: A Pattern in Phylogeny and Human Ontogeny

Investigations in the cognitive abilities of different animal species and children at different ages have revealed that consciousness comes in degrees. In this review, I will first address four cognitive abilities that are important to discriminate levels of consciousness: mirror self-recognition, theory of mind, mental time travel, and the capacity to entertain secondary representations. I will then examine putative relations between these abilities and assign them to three levels of consciousness (anoetic, noetic, autonoetic). Finally, I will discuss the implications of differences in consciousness for the understanding of behavioral organization in animals and humans and for animal welfare science. I will argue that, on one hand, implicit behavioral rules may account for results obtained in research on theory of mind and mental time travel abilities in animals and children. On the other hand, secondary representations may be the key to explain behaviors based on semantic memory as well as semantic future planning abilities observed in great apes and young children. These considerations are in accordance with the view that an explicit theory of mind and a continuous self through time are unique to humans.

Behavioral Organization in Infants with Intraventricular Hemorrhage: Characteristics and Clinical Implications

PurposeThis study examined the neurobehavioral functioning in preterm infants diagnosed with intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) grades III and IV, using the Assessment of Preterm Infants’ Behavior (APIB).Design and SampleThe APIB was completed on nine infants with IVH III/IV at 36 and 40weeks postmenstrual age to determine the effects of IVH on the neurobehavioral functioning and maturation over time. The APIB neurobehavioral scores (i.e., physiologic, motor, state, attention/interaction, regulatory, and examiner facilitation subsystem scores) were examined in relation to the two different testing times and to infants without lesion.ResultsAPIB scores at 36weeks suggested easily disorganized and poorly modulated behavioral regulation and low threshold of disorganization and stress. At 40 weeks, poor overall behavioral regulation persisted; only motor differences statistically improved between the two ages. Neurobehavior was significantly poor in all but state subsystems when tested at both ages in infants with a brain lesion.

Mind from Matter? – Via Brain and Behavior

How did the process of Darwinian evolution lead from dead matter to the human mind? Of this long, complicated process the present essay selects and discusses just one step, that from animal behavior to animal mind. The process of living has two aspects, the maintenance of the process in the organism and the interaction of the organism with the world. In animals the latter is organized as behavior. Behavior evolves, as it serves the fitness of the animal. The brain evolves because it improves the behavior in terms of the animal’s fitness. Given the richness of the world and the openness of the future, the organization of behavior can be indirect and most intricate. The animal mind can be understood as behavioral organization at a higher level, as metaorganization. This concept is documented by behavioral studies in a particular animal, the fly Drosophila.

Behavioral Organization: Merger–Acquisition Integration (Theoretical Approach and Applied) for Jordan Companies

This study as other previous studies finds that theory puts has a higher consequence as outcome arising from pre-existing structural characteristic. Also there is clear evidence that complexity is the most predominate, enhance, this study aims to examine the performance of merger –acquisition of organization as it involves the pre-established structural specific characteristic, as team behavior, infrastructure support, organization complexity, enhance the effect task structure, and motivation, also the willingness to share information and cultural unification. Also we have used (Vasconellos and Kish) model to support our results of merger-acquisition integration through implies the model to our two companies, the results support our opinion that M/A integration can improve and make progress and successful result to the companies which interred to M/A integration process.The extent to which the organizational provides an infrastructure of firms support is also quite at adequate levels and expected to have a positive correlation with the post-merger outcomes for the Jordanian companies. Individuals- willingness to have the information is in the lowest level of association with the performance and integration of the organization.Counterintuitively, the analyzed leading to a cohesive of the behavioral theory of the post-merger, and has a paves away of the scholar to study and applied the integration dynamics and using mathematical models which can be tailored as specific circumstances.

Sensorimotor agency

An enactive sensorimotor approach to perception places the agent at the center of the engagements that constitute a perceptual act. The notion of agency required, however, cannot be based solely on an organism’s biological well-being. Interests beyond mere survival guide many activities that animals with rich sensorimotor lives engage in. It is proposed that the processes that individuate a sensorimotor agent are the very acts that it performs, and that a network of precarious but mutually stabilizing sensorimotor schemes can satisfy the conditions of agency. Compatibility is demonstrated with dynamical approaches to behavioral development, as well as with psychological theories that support the view of a networked behavioral organization. The interdependence of agency at the organismic, sensorimotor, and social levels is discussed, as well as the relevance of sensorimotor agency, to understand the inherent meaningfulness of perception for the perceiver, as well as her subjectivity.