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Necessity is the mother of invention. The role of collective sensing in group formation.

Year: 2016
Type: preprint
Abstract: Traditionally, the fields of Sociology and Biology explain how groups could form and remain together if external factors are present, for example an environment that favors group behavior, e.g. avoid predation, or between-group competition. This work investigates the causes of group formation when these external factors are not present and individuals compete for the same resources, i.e. within-group competition. A motivating example for our research is a recent anthropological study that found evidence for an increase in social tolerance among Homo Sapiens starting from the Middle Pleistocene. Social tolerance is a prerequisite for the creation of large social groups that include unrelated individuals, but at the same time it becomes evolutionarily successful only if interactions with unrelated individuals are frequent. We argue that lack of information about resource location could have induced frequent interactions between unrelated individuals, as it would enable collective sensing and provide an evolutionary advantage. Collective sensing refers to the ability of a group to sense what is beyond the capabilities of the individual. Collective sensing is present in nature but its role in group formation has never been studied. We test our hypothesis by means of an agent-based evolutionary model of a foraging task, with which we compare the fitness individuals using different navigation strategies: random walk and herding behavior, i.e. moving towards crowded areas. Although agents are unable to perceive resources at the individual level, interactions between them allow the group of herding agents to collectively locate resources. Our findings suggest that evolution favors the spontaneous formation of groups, if resources become scarce and information about their location is not available at the individual level but can be inferred from the dynamics of the population.
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2287513001
Cites: 4
Cited by:
Related to: 10