Noise, cost and speed-accuracy trade-offs: decision-making in a decentralized system.

ABSTRACT: Many natural and artificial decision-making systems face decision problems where there is an inherent compromise between two or more objectives. One such common compromise is between the speed and accuracy of a decision. The ability to exploit the characteristics of a decision problem in order to vary between the extremes of making maximally rapid, or maximally accurate decisions, is a useful property of such systems. Colonies of the ant Temnothorax albipennis (formerly Leptothorax albipennis) are a paradigmatic decentralized decision-making system, and have been shown flexibly to compromise accuracy for speed when making decisions during house-hunting. During emigration, a colony must typically evaluate and choose between several possible alternative new nest sites of differing quality. I

SUBMITTER: Marshall JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1578745 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature