Animals use the behavior of others to make decisions about most aspects of their lives. It is a cheap way to survey your environment, but it's often a noisy source of information -- you never know what the past experience of others tells you about current conditions.
We've shown how animals use social information in making decisions -- how they weigh different qualities of information, how this shapes their behavioral and ecological development from a young age, and how information from social group members is perceived and integrated into decision making processes. The goal is to understand how individuals balance their own experience with the world against that of their neighbors.
We've shown how animals use social information in making decisions -- how they weigh different qualities of information, how this shapes their behavioral and ecological development from a young age, and how information from social group members is perceived and integrated into decision making processes. The goal is to understand how individuals balance their own experience with the world against that of their neighbors.
Photo of Uroderma bilobatum courtesy of Kamran Safi. Panamanian tent-making bats discriminate the quality of social information and prefer information from new bats over their roost mates.
