Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3SZ, UK.
Department of Zoology, Marine Apex Predator Research Unit, Institute for Coastal and Marine Research, Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth-Gqeberha 6031, South Africa.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2023 Apr 10;378(1874):20220060. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0060. Epub 2023 Feb 20.
Learning is ubiquitous in animals: individuals can use their experience to fine-tune behaviour and thus to better adapt to the environment during their lifetime. Observations have accumulated that, at the collective level, groups can also use their experience to improve collective performance. Yet, despite apparent simplicity, the links between individual learning capacities and a collective's performance can be extremely complex. Here we propose a centralized and broadly applicable framework to begin classifying this complexity. Focusing principally on groups with stable composition, we first identify three distinct ways through which groups can improve their collective performance when repeating a task: each member learning to better solve the task on its own, members learning about each other to better respond to one another and members learning to improve their complementarity. We show through selected empirical examples, simulations and theoretical treatments that these three categories identify distinct mechanisms with distinct consequences and predictions. These mechanisms extend well beyond current social learning and collective decision-making theories in explaining collective learning. Finally, our approach, definitions and categories help generate new empirical and theoretical research avenues, including charting the expected distribution of collective learning capacities across taxa and its links to social stability and evolution. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Collective behaviour through time'.
个体可以利用经验来调整行为，从而在其一生中更好地适应环境。有观察表明，在集体层面上，群体也可以利用经验来提高集体表现。然而，尽管表面上很简单，但个体学习能力和集体表现之间的联系可能极其复杂。在这里，我们提出了一个集中的、广泛适用的框架，开始对这种复杂性进行分类。主要关注组成稳定的群体，我们首先确定了三种不同的方式，当重复一项任务时，群体可以提高其集体表现：每个成员学会更好地独立解决任务，成员相互学习以更好地相互响应，以及成员学会提高互补性。我们通过选择的实证例子、模拟和理论处理表明，这三个类别确定了具有不同后果和预测的不同机制。这些机制在解释集体学习方面远远超出了当前的社会学习和集体决策理论。最后，我们的方法、定义和类别有助于产生新的实证和理论研究途径，包括绘制跨分类群的集体学习能力的预期分布及其与社会稳定性和进化的联系。本文是“随着时间的推移的集体行为”讨论会议的一部分。
