CTN: Naomi Leonard

Title:
Fast and Flexible Group Decision-Making

Abstract:
A wide range of animals live and move in groups. Many animals do better in groups than alone when, for example, foraging for food, migrating, and avoiding predators. A key to group success is social interaction. Less well understood is how a group, with no centralized control, is capable of the fast and flexible decision-making required to carry out its tasks in an environment with uncertainty, variability, and rapid change. I will introduce an approach to modeling group decision-making dynamics that draws on biophysical models from computational neuroscience. Analysis of our model provides new insights into fast and flexible decision-making: how indecision can be broken as fast as it becomes costly, how sensitivity to stimulus can be tuned as context and environment change, how social heterogeneity can enhance stability and flexibility, and how excitability (spiking) provides further agility and frugality. I will discuss the significance of these results for the study and design of collective intelligence in nature and technology.