Berlin 2018 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 56: Complex Contagion Phenomena I (Focus Session, joint SOE/DY/BP/SNPD) (joint session SOE/DY/BP)

DY 56.5: Invited Talk

Thursday, March 15, 2018, 11:45–12:15, MA 001

Collective Sensing and Decision-Making in Animal Groups: From Fish Schools to Primate Societies — •Iain Couzin — Dept. of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology & Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

Understanding how social interactions shape biological processes is a central challenge in contemporary science. Using an integrated experimental and theoretical approach I will address how, and why, animals exhibit highly-coordinated collective behavior. I will demonstrate new imaging technology that allows us to reconstruct (automatically) the dynamic, time-varying networks that correspond to the visual cues employed by organisms when making movement decisions. Sensory networks are shown to provide a much more accurate representation of how social influence propagates in groups, and their analysis allows us to identify, for any instant in time, the most socially-influential individuals within groups, and to predict the magnitude of complex behavioral cascades before they actually occur. I will also introduce a new fully-immersive Virtual Reality environment for freely-moving animals, and investigate the coupling between spatial and information dynamics in groups. Finally I will reveal the critical role uninformed, or unbiased, individuals play in social networks effecting fast and democratic consensus decision-making in collectives, including with experiments involving schooling fish and wild baboons.