Collective conflict resolution in groups on the move

Itai Pinkoviezky, Iain D. Couzin, and Nir S. Gov
Phys. Rev. E 97, 032304 – Published 12 March 2018

Abstract

Collective decision-making regarding direction of travel is observed during natural motion of animal and cellular groups. This phenomenon is exemplified, in the simplest case, by a group that contains two informed subgroups that hold conflicting preferred directions of motion. Under such circumstances, simulations, subsequently supported by experimental data with birds and primates, have demonstrated that the resulting motion is either towards a compromise direction or towards one of the preferred targets (even when the two subgroups are equal in size). However, the nature of this transition is not well understood. We present a theoretical study that combines simulations and a spin model for mobile animal groups, the latter providing an equilibrium representation, and exact solution in the thermodynamic limit. This allows us to identify the nature of this transition at a critical angular difference between the two preferred directions: in both flocking and spin models the transition coincides with the change in the group dynamics from Brownian to persistent collective motion. The groups undergo this transition as the number of uninformed individuals (those in the group that do not exhibit a directional preference) increases, which acts as an inverse of the temperature (noise) of the spin model. When the two informed subgroups are not equal in size, there is a tendency for the group to reach the target preferred by the larger subgroup. We find that the spin model captures effectively the essence of the collective decision-making transition and allows us to reveal a noise-dependent trade-off between the decision-making speed and the ability to achieve majority (democratic) consensus.

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  • Received 14 September 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.97.032304

©2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

  1. Research Areas
Interdisciplinary PhysicsPhysics of Living SystemsStatistical Physics & Thermodynamics

Authors & Affiliations

Itai Pinkoviezky1, Iain D. Couzin2, and Nir S. Gov3

  • 1Departments of Physics and Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA
  • 2Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 78457 Konstanz, Germany and Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany
  • 3Department of Chemical Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel

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Issue

Vol. 97, Iss. 3 — March 2018

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