Decision versus compromise for animal groups in motion.

ABSTRACT: Previously, we showed using a computational agent-based model that a group of animals moving together can make a collective decision on direction of motion, even if there is a conflict between the directional preferences of two small subgroups of "informed" individuals and the remaining "uninformed" individuals have no directional preference. The model requires no explicit signaling or identification of informed individuals; individuals merely adjust their steering in response to socially acquired information on relative motion of neighbors. In this paper, we show how the dynamics of this system can be modeled analytically, and we derive a testable result that adding uninformed individuals improves stability of collective decision making. We first present a continuous-time dynamic model an

SUBMITTER: Leonard NE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3252942 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature