Couzin Iain D
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Trends Cogn Sci. 2009 Jan;13(1):36-43. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2008.10.002. Epub 2008 Dec 6.
The remarkable collective action of organisms such as swarming ants, schooling fish and flocking birds has long captivated the attention of artists, naturalists, philosophers and scientists. Despite a long history of scientific investigation, only now are we beginning to decipher the relationship between individuals and group-level properties. This interdisciplinary effort is beginning to reveal the underlying principles of collective decision-making in animal groups, demonstrating how social interactions, individual state, environmental modification and processes of informational amplification and decay can all play a part in tuning adaptive response. It is proposed that important commonalities exist with the understanding of neuronal processes and that much could be learned by considering collective animal behavior in the framework of cognitive science.
诸如蚁群、鱼群和鸟群等生物的非凡集体行为，长期以来一直吸引着艺术家、博物学家、哲学家和科学家的关注。尽管科学研究历史悠久，但直到现在我们才开始解读个体与群体层面特性之间的关系。这种跨学科的努力开始揭示动物群体集体决策的潜在原则，展示了社会互动、个体状态、环境改变以及信息放大和衰减过程如何都能在调节适应性反应中发挥作用。有人提出，在理解神经元过程方面存在重要的共性，并且通过在认知科学框架内考虑动物集体行为可以学到很多东西。
