A5034536501- Evacuation and Crowd Dynamics
- Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence
- Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior
- Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Complex Network Analysis Techniques
- Neural dynamics and brain function
- Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Complex Systems and Decision Making
- Slime Mold and Myxomycetes Research
- Neurobiology and Insect Physiology Research
- Species Distribution and Climate Change
- Face Recognition and Perception
- Nonlinear Dynamics and Pattern Formation
- Marine animal studies overview
- Social Media and Politics
- Plant and animal studies
- Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior
- Anomaly Detection Techniques and Applications
- Cultural Differences and Values
- Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Educational Technology and Assessment
- Ecosystem dynamics and resilience
- Data Visualization and Analytics
University of Massachusetts Boston
2023-2024
Santa Fe Institute
2019-2023
Zero to Three
2023
Harvard University
2007-2020
Princeton University
2013-2014
Individuals in groups, whether composed of humans or other animal species, often make important decisions collectively, including avoiding predators, selecting a direction which to migrate and electing political leaders. Theoretical empirical work suggests that collective can be more accurate than individual decisions, phenomenon known as the ‘wisdom crowds’. In these previous studies, it has been assumed individuals independent estimates based on single environmental cue. real world,...
The ability of individual animals to create functional structures by joining together is rare and confined the social insects. Army ants (Eciton) form collective assemblages out their own bodies perform a variety functions that benefit entire colony. Here we examine ‟bridges" linked individuals are constructed span gaps in colony's foraging trail. How these living adjust themselves varied changing conditions remains poorly understood. Our field experiments show continuously modify bridges,...
Learning has been studied extensively in the context of isolated individuals. However, many organisms are social and consequently make decisions both individually as part a collective. Reaching consensus necessarily means that single option is chosen by group, even when there dissenting opinions. This decision-making process decouples otherwise direct relationship between animals' preferences their experiences (the outcomes decisions). Instead, because an individual's learned influence what...
Aggregating multiple non-expert opinions into a collective estimate can improve accuracy across many contexts. However, two sources of error diminish wisdom: individual estimation biases and information sharing between individuals. Here, we measure social influence rules in experiments involving hundreds individuals performing classic numerosity task. We first investigate how existing aggregation methods, such as calculating the arithmetic mean or median, are influenced by these error. show...
Lab organisms are valuable in part because of large-scale experiments like screens, but performing such over long time periods by hand is arduous and error-prone. Organism-handling robots could revolutionize the way that liquid-handling accelerated molecular biology. We developed a modular automated platform for (MAPLE), an organism-handling robot capable conducting lab tasks experiments, then deployed it to conduct common Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Caenorhabditis elegans, Physarum...
Many animal groups exhibit signatures of persistent internal modular structure, whereby individuals consistently interact with certain groupmates more than others. In such groups, information relevant to a collective decision may spread unevenly through the group, but how this impacts quality resulting is not well understood. Here, we explicitly model modularity within and examine it affects amount represented in decisions, as accuracy those decisions. We find that structure necessarily...
Group living is a common strategy used by fishes to improve their fitness. While sociality associated with many benefits in natural environments, including predator avoidance, this behaviour may be maladaptive the Anthropocene. Humans have become dominant marine systems, modern fishing gear developed specifically target groups of schooling species. Therefore, ironically, behavioural strategies which evolved avoid non-human predators now actually make certain fish more vulnerable predation...
Background: Models of collective decision-making typically assume that individuals sample information independently and decide instantaneously. In most natural sociological settings, however, decisions occur over some timescale in which group members gather information—often from multiple sources. Information sources may persist for varying lengths time or be viewed concurrently identically by members. These tendencies introduce spatio-temporal correlations gathered with poorly understood...
Groups of organisms, from bacteria to fish schools human societies, depend on their ability make accurate decisions in an uncertain world. Most models collective decision-making assume that groups reach a consensus during bout, often through simple majority rule. In many natural and sociological systems, however, may fail consensus, resulting stalemates. Here, we build opinion dynamics wisdom examine how stalemates affect the crowds. For environments, where individuals have access...
Significance Human-designed infrastructures and networks relying on centralized or hierarchical control are susceptible to single-point catastrophic failure when disrupted. By contrast, most complex biological systems employ distributed can be more robust perturbations. In field experiments with Eciton burchellii army ants, we show that scaffold structures, self-assembled by living emerge in response disrupted traffic inclines, facilitating flow stemming losses of foragers prey. Informed our...
Motivated by recent observations of fish schools, we study coordinated group motion for individuals with oscillatory speed. Neighbors that have speed oscillations common frequency, amplitude and average but different phases, move together in alternating spatial patterns, taking turns being towards the front, sides back group. We propose a model control laws to investigate connections between these dynamics, communication when sensing is range or direction limited, convergence motions.
Abstract Animals often travel in groups, and their navigational decisions can be influenced by social interactions. Both theory empirical observations suggest that such collective navigation result individuals improving ability to find way could one of the key benefits sociality for these species. Here we provide an overview potential mechanisms underlying review known, supposed, evidence behaviour, highlight interesting directions future research. We further explore how both learning during...
AbstractFrom biofilms to whale pods, organisms across taxa live in groups, thereby accruing numerous diverse benefits of sociality. All social organisms, however, pay the inherent cost increased resource competition. One expects that when resources become scarce, this will increase, causing group sizes decrease. Indeed, occurs some species, but there are also species for which remain stable or even increase under scarcity. What accounts these opposing responses? We present a conceptual...
Abstract Aggregating multiple non-expert opinions into a collective estimate can improve accuracy across many contexts. However, two sources of error diminish wisdom: individual estimation biases and information sharing between individuals. Here we measure social influence rules in experiments involving hundreds individuals performing classic numerosity task. We first investigate how existing aggregation methods, such as calculating the arithmetic mean or median, are influenced by these...
ABSTRACT From biofilms to whale pods, organisms have repeatedly converged on sociality as a strategy improve individual fitness. Yet, it remains challenging identify the most important drivers—and by extension, evolutionary mechanisms—of for particular species. Here, we present conceptual framework, literature review, and model demonstrating that direction magnitude of response group size sudden resource shifts provides strong indication underlying drivers sociality. We catalog six...
We develop a conceptual framework for studying collective adaptation in complex socio-cognitive systems, driven by dynamic interactions of social integration strategies, environments, and problem structures. Going beyond searching “intelligent” collectives, we integrate research from different disciplines outline modelling approaches that can be used to begin answering questions such as why collectives sometimes fail reach seemingly obvious solutions, how they change their strategies network...
Abstract Integrating the costs and benefits of collective behaviors is a fundamental challenge to understanding evolution group living. These can rarely be quantified simultaneously due complexity interactions within group, or even compared each other because absence common metrics between them. The construction ‘living bridges’ by New World army ants - which they use shorten their foraging trails unique example behavior where have been experimentally measured related other. As result, it...
ABSTRACT Groups of organisms, from bacteria to fish schools human societies, depend on their ability make accurate decisions in an uncertain world. Most models collective decision-making assume that groups reach a consensus during bout, often through simple majority rule. In many natural and sociological systems, however, may fail consensus, resulting stalemates. Here, we build opinion dynamics wisdom examine how stalemates affect the crowds. For environments, where individuals have access...
In a complex digital space---where information is shared without vetting from central authorities and where emotional content, rather than factual veracity, better predicts content spread---individuals often need to learn through experience which news sources trust rely on. Although public experts' intuition alike call for stronger scrutiny of providers, reliance on global trusted outlets, there statistical argument be made that counter these prescriptions. We consider the scenario in...