Quantum-like perception entanglement leads to advantageous collective decisions

Research output: Working paper

Abstract

Social animals have to make collective decisions on a daily basis. In most instances, these decisions are taken by consensus, when the group does what the majority of individuals want. Individuals have to base these decisions on the information they perceive from their socioecological landscape. The perception mechanisms they use can influence the cost of collective decisions. Here I show that when group-living individuals perceive their environment concurrently for the same decisions, a quantum-like perception entanglement process can confer less costly collective decisions than when individuals collect their information independently. This highlights a mechanism that can help explain what may seem to be irrational group-living behavior and opens avenues to develop empirical tests for quantum decision theory.
Original languageEnglish
PublisherArXiv
Pages1-8
Number of pages8
Publication statusSubmitted - 3 Aug 2013

Bibliographical note

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This work received funding from the MASTS pooling initiative (the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland) and their support is gratefully acknowledged MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions.

Paper presented at the XXXIII International Ethological Congress, 8 August 2013, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK

Keywords

  • collective decisions
  • perception entanglement
  • quantum-like decision theory
  • echolocation

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