The evolution of decision rules in complex environments.

PublishedResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tReviewThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2013.12.012Models and experiments on adaptive decision-making typically consider highly simplified environments that bear little resemblance to the complex, heterogeneous world in which animals (including humans) have evolved. These studies reveal an array of so-called cognitive biases and puzzling features of behaviour that seem irrational in the specific situation presented to the decision-maker. Here we review an emerging body of work that highlights spatiotemporal heterogeneity and autocorrelation as key properties of most real-world environments that may help us understand why these biases evolved. Ecologically rational decision rules adapted to such environments can lead to apparently maladaptive behaviour in artificial experimental settings. We encourage researchers to consider environments with greater complexity to understand better how evolution has shaped our cognitive systems.This work was funded by the European Research Council (Advanced Grant 250209 to A.I.H.) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (grant number EP/I032622/1 to Iain D. Gilchrist)

An instinct for detection: psychological perspectives on CCTV surveillance

The aim of this article is to inform and stimulate a proactive, multidisciplinary approach to research and development in surveillance-based detective work. In this article we review some of the key psychological issues and phenomena that practitioners should be aware of. We look at how human performance can be explained with reference to our biological and evolutionary legacy. We show how critical viewing conditions can be in determining whether observers detect or overlook criminal activity in video material. We examine situations where performance can be surprisingly poor, and cover situations where, even once confronted with evidence of these detection deficits, observers still underestimate their susceptibility to them. Finally we explain why the emergence of these relatively recent research themes presents an opportunity for police and law enforcement agencies to set a new, multidisciplinary research agenda focused on relevant and pressing issues of national and international importance

Individual and environmental drivers of resource use in an endangered vulture: Integrating movement, spatial and social ecology

The study of animal movement makes possible to understand how the spatial context influences individuals and populations, something especially important for species with high movement abilities able to wander routinely over large areas and face diverse humanmediated threats at different spatial scales. Vultures are long-lived scavenging vertebrates with delayed maturity and low fecundity, often exhibiting complex social behaviours. European and most of the Old World vulture populations have been historically dependent on the spatial distribution of human-provided resources. Currently, they are endangered worldwide suffering regional dramatic declines of up to 90% mainly provoked by direct and indirect persecution, infrastructure development and decrease in food resources. Effective vulture conservation requires spatially-explicit understanding of how vultures cope with resource availability and human induced transformation. In this thesis, we used spatial data collected between 2013 and 2018 from 49 GPStagged Canarian Egyptian vultures (Neophron percnopterus majorensis). The bulk of this endemic subspecies is concentrated in Fuerteventura Island where it depends on extensive goat farms, currently changing towards semi-intensive and intensive regimes. In addition, it suffers from high mortality in power lines. Movement information is combined with individual characteristics, life-history stages, and detailed data on the spatial distribution of territories, feeding resources, and human facilities. Particularly, we examined i) drivers of the use of power lines, ii) foraging tactics according to spatiotemporal variation in food predictability and individual characteristics, iii) drivers of use of livestock farms, and iv) farmers’ perception about the target species in relation to the observed spatial behaviour. Vultures’ behaviour was influenced by the distribution, predictability and amount of feeding resources, as well as by the spatial distribution of conspecifics and sources of human disturbance. At the same time, individual attributes such as sex, age, territorial status or social rank interacted with environmental cues to shape movements. Overall, vultures somewhat avoided humans by selecting farms and electric pylons far from roads or urban areas. Importantly, the predictable food resources provided by the main feeding station determined an intensive use of electric pylons and farms in its proximity. Use of both resources were however complex according to individual traits and life-history stages. Territorial status and social position in the dominance hierarchy shaped sex-specific patterns of feeding preferences, with dominant breeding females, but not males, using predictable food more intensively and choosing to settle in nearby territories. The distribution of territories affected in turn the selection of pylons and farms by both territorial and non-breeding individuals, highlighting the close interdependency and feedback between the spatial structuring of the population and the distribution of resources. Non-territorial individuals avoided resources located close to occupied breeding territories meanwhile territorial ones preferred those close to their nest, these spatial constrains being less obvious during the non-breeding season. After disentangling how those factors influence the intensity of use electric pylons, we combined predictions combined with actual mortality showing that prioritizing mitigation measures on relatively few pylons could drastically reduce accidents. Finally, farmers perceived Egyptian vultures as the most beneficial avian scavenger in the island, but owners of larger farms, which were more visited but frequently more mechanized than smaller ones, were less aware of vulture presence in their exploitations. This suggests a potential influence of modernization in livestock practices on disconnecting people from ecosystem services provided by wildlife. Moreover, the consistency between awareness and GPS data increased when vultures were more present in farms or their surroundings, indicating that scarce and endangered species are more susceptible of suffering misperception. Our findings are important from an applied point of view in a context of rapid changes in traditional livestock practices and power development, offering sound scientific knowledge that allows to make informed management decisions. The complex network of factors and patterns should be considered in the management of electric infrastructures, predictable and semi-predictable resources, or social actions for vulture conservation. General solutions ignoring population structure and the spatial distribution of territories, feeding sources or human footprint should be avoided since those could lead to unbalanced impacts between population fractions that could compromise the effectiveness of management and conservation actions

DYNAMIC BALANCING OF FORAGING AND DEFENSIVE EFFORT CONTRIBUTE TO THE OPTIMALITY OF THE HONEY BEE ROBBING STRATEGY

The optimality of a foraging strategy shifts in response to dynamic ecological conditions and the need to devote effort to other tasks. Nest defense and foraging effort in the honey bee may trade off as both tasks are performed by a shared workforce of physiologically-specialized individuals in exclusive roles. Honey robbing is a foraging strategy predicted to benefit from simultaneous increases in foraging and defensive effort, but may be constrained by workforce specialization. We developed a methodology to induce robbing behaviors with uninhabited bait hives. We used this methodology to evaluate foraging and defensive effort before and during robbing by measuring forager activity and guard defensive behavior. We then assessed three cues as potential indicators guards use to determine colony robbing status. We assessed changes in identifying odor through laboratory assays of comb exposure, robber behavior through a genomic analysis of aggression biomarker genes, and field studies of the correlation between forager activity and guard defensiveness. Our results indicate colonies can simultaneously increase defensive and foraging effort when participating in robbing. We determine guards likely respond to multiple cues, with strong evidence for robbing nestmate behavior and some evidence for forager activity as signals. These results show colonies are able to dynamically balance the trade-offs of worker specialization to facilitate optimal foraging through complex social cues

Foraging Ecology, Genetic Diversity and Spatial Behaviour of Caucasian Lynx in Anatolia

Baseline ecological, genetic and behavioural information is still lacking and is urgently needed to set up an efficient conservation action plan for Caucasian lynx Lynx lynx dinniki in Turkey. This dissertation investigated the diet and foraging ecology of the three largest Caucasian lynx populations occupying three major lynx habitat types in Anatolia, the Asian part of Turkey. I also studied the spatial organisation and genetic variation as well as interactions between individuals of Caucasian lynx in a study area in northwestern Anatolia where I benefitted from long-term monitoring efforts started in 2009. In Chapter 2, I quantified the diet, prey preferences and functional response of three Caucasian lynx populations in Anatolia from a comparative perspective of European Eurasian lynx populations. The diet of the Eurasian lynx in Anatolia consists mostly of brown hares Lepus europaeus (78 % - 99 % of prey biomass consumed). Its foraging ecology fulfils expectations for a lagomorph specialist, similar to Iberian lynx Lynx pardinus and Canadian lynx Lynx canadensis in other ecosystems. Caucasian lynx in Anatolia display comparable body sizes and physiological requirements to individuals of other lagomorph specialist lynx species and consume half the daily food required to sustain a European Eurasian lynx individual. There was a high incidence of cannibalism, an aggressive behaviour that has very rarely observed in low density European lynx populations, observed in two ecosystems in Anatolia. In Chapter 3, I used nuclear molecular markers to investigate how sampling methodology can affect measures of genetic diversity if the population contains male territorial residents, other male residents and females are philopatric. I contrasted ‘invasive’ sampling, where tissue samples are obtained from individuals caught in box traps, with ‘non-invasive’ sampling, which requires the search and collection of faecal samples (in my case optimised through the training and use of a domestic dog trained to find lynx faeces) and the use of camera trapping. The results demonstrated that ‘invasive’ sampling was an inefficient technique and biased in favour of sampling particular territorial individuals and their offspring, thereby underestimating the true genetic variation in the population. ‘Non-invasive’ faecal sampling resulted in a less biased sampling of all sexes and classes of residents, an improved estimate of genetic diversity measures and a significantly higher level of genetic diversity obtained. The results indicate a high genetic diversity and no signs of inbreeding for northwest Anatolian lynx. Non-invasive faecal sampling not only provides more reliable genetic diversity measures but also delivers additional information on other important aspects of the biology and ecology of the same population, including diet, spatial organization and the presence of female philopatry, which in turn can help to inform conservation management planning. In Chapter 4, I investigated the spatial behaviour and population density of a northwest Anatolian Caucasian lynx population through GPS tracking of nine lynx individuals and camera trapping. The results indicated that Caucasian lynx in this study area have the smallest mean territorial female and male kernel density distribution (KUD) and minimum convex polygon (MCP) home ranges (females: 95% KUD = 46±8, 100% MCP = 49±16; males: 95% KUD = 176±3, 100% MCP = 183±5) ever reported for Eurasian lynx and a high density (4.9 lynx/100km2), on a level comparable to southern Anatolia. A different prey type, a high prey density and the absence of exploitation of this lynx population are likely drivers of the observed small home ranges. The detailed results revealed two male spatial tactics associated with separate life history stages – adult males start their residency in a population as resident floaters, ranging across huge home ranges and queuing for a territory, probably for several years. Territorial residents defend small territories. It is at present unclear whether territorial residents and / or floaters are candidate males to father the offspring of the resident philopatric females. A landscape fully occupied by adult territorial individuals is likely the cause of late territory establishment in male lynx and the large home range sizes of floaters. In this respect, Caucasian lynx resemble the spatial organisation of cheetahs Acinonyx jubatus, where the existence of floaters queuing for territories has also been documented in high density populations in eastern and southern Africa. This thesis sheds light on foraging ecology, diet, spatial organization and behaviour and genetic variability of Caucasian lynx in Anatolia. It also provides baseline information required to set up a conservation action plan of Caucasian lynx in Anatolia. For such an action plan to become effective, the non-invasive population genetics and density estimate methods applied in this study will be an essential tool for the assessment of the status of other Caucasian lynx populations in Anatolia and elsewhere

Darwin’s ghost : evolutionary psychology and consumer behaviour analysis

The consumer behaviour analysis research programme continues to develop as both anintellectual discipline and an applied area of empirical inquiry, enriching ourunderstanding of consumer responses to the products and services of everyday life, andto the marketing of those products and services. To date, however, the programme hasfunctioned largely at an ontogenetic level, developing proximate‐level accounts ofconsumer choice based upon operant learning at the expense of any meaningfulengagement with the more ultimate‐level accounts of such phenomena offered byadoption of a more phylogenetic perspective. In an attempt to address this potential gapin current knowledge, this paper introduces the central tenets of neo‐Darwinian theoryand their relevance for the consumer behaviour‐analytic programme. More specifically,the paper seeks to apply adaptionist logic to the Behavioural Perspective Model, theprinciple explanatory framework within consumer behaviour analysis, in order todemonstrate how the hypotheses generated by that framework may gain greaterconceptual clarity and empirical precision through accommodation of both ontogenyand phylogeny within its sphere of reference

Seeing Things As We Do: Ecological Psychology And The Normativity Of Visual Perception

In virtue of what is perception successful? In philosophy and psychology, we sometimes assume that visual accuracy amounts to a correspondence between percepts and subject-independent, physical properties. In this dissertation, I argue that we should reject this assumption in favor of norms grounded in the action-guiding nature of perception. Recent theories of perception purport to cast off the intellectualist baggage of twentieth-century thinking, and to address perception in its own distinctive terms. I show that these approaches are unified in aiming to reduce spatial aspects of the percept to subject-independent geometrical facts about the object-perceiver relation. In doing so, these views remain guilty of an unwarranted assimilation of perception to cognition. Perceptual constancy, the capacity to encounter a relatively stable world of object properties despite variation in sensory stimulation, is measured using a metric that has percept-physical property correspondence at one extreme, and retinal match at the other. Advocates of the correspondence norm freely redeploy this metric as gauging accuracy in perception, so that the closer a percept comes to invariantly matching the distal property, the closer it comes to veridically presenting the environment. Yet, correspondence views are committed to widespread misperception that cannot be accounted for in terms of evolutionary complexity. I distinguish between descriptive and normative enterprises in cognitive science, and suggest that we reinterpret the constancy metric as an empirically useful, descriptive quantificational tool—one that does not straightforwardly entail normative facts. With the correspondence norm undercut, I develop a more viable framework for understanding accuracy, one that draws on James Gibson’s ecological theory. Accordingly, accuracy is best understood pragmatically, in ecological terms such as usefulness. Partial constancy is often sufficient for an organism to act effectively in its environment, a result that suggests surprising consequences for what is seen in perception. In color ontology, there is some theoretical attention to descriptive facts about constancy. However, because of a worry about stipulating perceiver and context standards, theorists continue to reject ecological approaches to color. I resolve the worry by appealing to pluralism about scientific objects. The resulting framework is ecologically sensible, empirically useful, and deeply interdisciplinary

Ownership conflicts and their resolution

Game theory has been used to investigate a wide range of evolutionary questions, and has been important in explaining apparently selfish patterns in animal behaviour, and behaviours that do not appear to benefit the individual. The modelling chapters in this thesis develop new game theory approaches to modelling animal conflict, investigating the acquisition of territories and the trade-offs that occur between behaviours. Many game theory models of conflicts between individuals make predictions regarding the duration of fights in relation to asymmetries in resource holding potential (RHP). Duration is often interpreted as a result of mutual assessment of RHP, allowing the weaker individual to avoid costly interactions. However, the duration of a contest may also be the result of each individual persisting to a threshold determined by its own RHP, in fiddler crabs, Uca mjoebergi, I show that duration of contests increases with increasing size of the loser, and decreases, but to a lesser extent, with increasing size of the winter, suggesting that neither the mutual assessment or individual threshold hypothesis can explain fight duration in this species. Instead, individual cost thresholds may determine duration, but larger opponents may inflict costs more rapidly, consistent with the cumulative assessment game of animal conflict. In animal contests, the larger opponent is often victorious, but contests are often initiated by individuals that have little chance of winning (generally smaller individuals). A number of hypotheses may explain this behaviour, including a lack of alternative options (the ‘desperado effect’). Recent work has suggested that likely losers attack first due to an error in perception: they mistakenly perceive their chances of winning as being greater than they are. Using a game theoretical model, I show that if smaller individuals can accurately assess their chance of winning, if this chance is relatively high, and if they have few alternative options, they are predicted to be as aggressive as their larger opponents. In addition, when resources are abundant, and small individuals have some change of winning, they may be more aggressive than their larger opponents. Using a game theory model, I show that avoidance of a single fight location can be adaptive if the benefits of access to the area are low compared to the costs of fighting. Low fight costs and high population densities lead to the break down of territoriality and the formation of large, overlapping home ranges

An Exploration of the Status Quo Bias in Nonhuman Primates

A status quo bias is a tendency to resist change and keep things as they are. This bias is robust in humans and likely a byproduct of heuristic decision-making mechanisms, indicating that it may be an evolutionarily-conserved process that is phylogenetically widespread. However, few status quo bias studies have been conducted with nonhuman animals, and the evidence was mixed. Studying this question with animals could help inform welfare decisions for animals directly and it can shed light on the degree to which a status quo bias (as seen in humans) may be a result of human-unique experiences or the consequence of more fundamental decision-making mechanisms. The goal of this study was to explore whether other primates exhibit a preference for the status quo after controlling for reinforcement history, and to explore the relative influence of several different factors that may moderate the status quo bias effect. To test these questions, I conducted two experiments. In Experiment 1, capuchin monkeys and macaques made choices among computerized tasks, where one task was presented as the ‘default’ option (i.e., it could be played continuously without having to select it from a menu), after forced runs of trials that varied in length and which included trials of either a single task type or a mix of task types. I predicted that the monkeys would demonstrate a general preference for the default task over non- default alternatives, and that this preference would increase in magnitude after longer forced runs of the default task. In Experiment 2, lemurs and tamarins learned that boxes could be opened in two ways (lifting or sliding). I explored whether animals could be influenced to open the box by using one particular mechanism after recent exposure to that mechanism (i.e., establishing it as the ‘status quo’) while controlling overall reinforcement history for both mechanisms. The results indicated that the animals did not exhibit a status quo bias in these paradigms; other factors such as variety and task preference (E1) and approach angle (E2) had greater influence on animals’ choice behavior than the established status quo