Zeno’s paradox in decision making

Classical probability theory has been influential in modeling decision processes, despite empirical findings that have been persistently paradoxical from classical perspectives. For such findings, some researchers have been successfully pursuing decision models based on quantum theory. One unique feature of quantum theory is the collapse postulate, which entails that measurements (or in decision making, judgments) reset the state to be consistent with the measured outcome. If there is quantum structure in cognition, then there has to be evidence for the collapse postulate. A striking, a priori prediction, is that opinion change will be slowed down (under idealized conditions frozen) by continuous judgments. In physics, this is the quantum Zeno effect. We demonstrate a quantum Zeno effect in decision making in humans and so provide evidence that advocates the use of quantum principles in decision theory, at least in some cases

Behavioural thermoregulation via microhabitat selection of winter sleeping areas in an endangered primate: implications for habitat conservation

Strategic microhabitat selection allows animals in seasonally cold environments to reduce homeostatic energy costs, particularly overnight when thermoregulatory demands are greatest. Suitable sleeping areas may therefore represent important resources for winter survival. Knowledge of microhabitat use and potential impacts of anthropogenic habitat modification can aid species conservation through development of targeted habitat management plans. Wild, endangered Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) in logged cedar-oak forest were studied to investigate 1) the hypothesis that macaques select winter sleeping areas with microhabitat characteristics that may reduce thermoregulatory costs, and, if so, 2) how to minimize damage to sleeping areas from logging. Macaques slept only in Atlas cedars (Cedrus atlantica). Consistent with predictions, macaques preferred sleeping in sheltered topography and dense vegetation, which may reduce exposure to wind, precipitation and cold, and preferred large trees that facilitate social huddling. This suggests Barbary macaques employ strategic nocturnal microhabitat selection to reduce thermoregulatory costs; thus, suitable sleeping areas may influence winter survival. To minimize negative impacts of logging on macaque sleeping areas, results suggest avoiding logging in topographical depressions and maintaining cedar densities >250 ha-1 with average DBH >60 cm. This study demonstrates how animal behaviour can be used to guide species-specific habitat management plans

Learning time-varying categories

Many kinds of objects and events in our world have a strongly time-dependent quality. However, most theories about concepts and categories either are insensitive to variation over time or treat it as a nuisance factor that produces irrational order effects during learning. In this article, we present two category learning experiments in which we explored peoples’ ability to learn categories whose structure is strongly time-dependent. We suggest that order effects in categorization may in part reflect a sensitivity to changing environments, and that understanding dynamically changing concepts is an important part of developing a full account of human categorization.Daniel J. Navarro, Amy Perfors, Wai Keen Von

Collective Animal Behavior from Bayesian Estimation and Probability Matching

Animals living in groups make movement decisions that depend, among other factors, on social interactions with other group members. Our present understanding of social rules in animal collectives is based on empirical fits to observations and we lack first-principles approaches that allow their derivation. Here we show that patterns of collective decisions can be derived from the basic ability of animals to make probabilistic estimations in the presence of uncertainty. We build a decision-making model with two stages: Bayesian estimation and probabilistic matching.
In the first stage, each animal makes a Bayesian estimation of which behavior is best to perform taking into account personal information about the environment and social information collected by observing the behaviors of other animals. In the probability matching stage, each animal chooses a behavior with a probability given by the Bayesian estimation that this behavior is the most appropriate one. This model derives very simple rules of interaction in animal collectives that depend only on two types of reliability parameters, one that each animal assigns to the other animals and another given by the quality of the non-social information. We test our model by obtaining theoretically a rich set of observed collective patterns of decisions in three-spined sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus, a shoaling fish species. The quantitative link shown between probabilistic estimation and collective rules of behavior allows a better contact with other fields such as foraging, mate selection, neurobiology and psychology, and gives predictions for experiments directly testing the relationship between estimation and collective behavior

Category label and response location shifts in category learning

The category shift literature suggests that rule-based classification, an important form of explicit learning, is mediated by two separate learned associations: a stimulus-to-label association that associates stimuli and category labels, and a label-to-response association that associates category labels and responses. Three experiments investigate whether information–integration classification, an important form of implicit learning, is also mediated by two separate learned associations. Participants were trained on a rule-based or an information–integration categorization task and then the association between stimulus and category label, or between category label and response location was altered. For rule-based categories, and in line with previous research, breaking the association between stimulus and category label caused more interference than breaking the association between category label and response location. However, no differences in recovery rate emerged. For information–integration categories, breaking the association between stimulus and category label caused more interference and led to greater recovery than breaking the association between category label and response location. These results provide evidence that information–integration category learning is mediated by separate stimulus-to-label and label-to-response associations. Implications for the neurobiological basis of these two learned associations are discussed

The wisdom of the crowd playing The Price Is Right

In The Price Is Right game show, players compete to win a prize, by placing bids on its price. We ask whether it is possible to achieve a “wisdom of the crowd” effect, by combining the bids to produce an aggregate price estimate that is superior to the estimates of individual players. Using data from the game show, we show that a wisdom of the crowd effect is possible, especially by using models of the decision-making processes involved in bidding. The key insight is that, because of the competitive nature of the game, what people bid is not necessarily the same as what they know. This means better estimates are formed by aggregating latent knowledge than by aggregating observed bids. We use our results to highlight the usefulness of models of cognition and decision-making in studying the wisdom of the crowd, which are often approached only from non-psychological statistical perspectives

Bargaining over a common categorisation

Two agents endowed with different categorisations engage in bargaining to reach an understanding and agree on a common categorisation. We model the process as a simple non-cooperative game and demonstrate three results. When the initial disagreement is focused, the bargaining process has a zero-sum structure. When the disagreement is widespread, the zero-sum structure disappears and the unique equilibrium requires a retraction of consensus: two agents who individually associate a region with the same category end up rebranding it under a different category. Finally, we show that this last equilibrium outcome is Pareto dominated by a cooperative solution that avoids retraction; that is, the unique equilibrium agreement may be inefficient