Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5.
Proc Biol Sci. 2020 Dec 9;287(1940):20202690. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2020.2690. Epub 2020 Dec 2.
Animal groups often make decisions sequentially, from the front to the back of the group. In such cases, individuals can use the choices made by earlier ranks, a form of social information, to inform their own choice. The optimal strategy for such decisions has been explored in models which differ on, for example, whether or not agents take into account the sequence of observed choices. The models demonstrate that choices made later in a sequence are more informative, but it is not clear if animals use this information or rely instead on simpler heuristics, such as quorum rules. We show that a simple rule 'copy the last observed choice', gives similar predictions to those of optimal models for most likely sequences. We trained groups of zebrafish to choose one arm of a Y-maze and used them to demonstrate various sequences to naive fish. We show that the naive fish appear to use a simple rule, most often copying the choice of the last demonstrator, which results in near-optimal choices at a fraction of the computational cost.
动物群体通常会按顺序做出决策，从群体的前端到后端。在这种情况下，个体可以利用前面的个体做出的选择，即一种社会信息，来告知自己的选择。在这些决策中，最优策略在模型中进行了探讨，模型在是否考虑观察到的选择顺序等方面有所不同。这些模型表明，在序列中靠后的选择更具信息量，但尚不清楚动物是否利用了这些信息，还是依赖于更简单的启发式方法，例如多数规则。我们发现，一种简单的规则“复制最后观察到的选择”，对于最有可能的序列，其预测结果与最优模型相似。我们训练了一群斑马鱼选择 Y 型迷宫的一条臂，并使用它们向未参与实验的斑马鱼展示各种序列。我们发现，未参与实验的斑马鱼似乎使用了一种简单的规则，通常会复制最后一个示范者的选择，这导致它们以计算成本的一小部分做出了接近最优的选择。
