Social learning and information sharing: an evolutionary simulation model of foraging in Norway rats

Noble, J., Tucci, E. and Todd, P.M. (1999) Social learning and information sharing: an evolutionary simulation model of foraging in Norway rats. In: Advances in artificial life : 5th European Conference, ECAL'99, Lausanne, Switzerland, September, 1999 : proceedings. Lecture Notes in Artifical Intelligence (1674). Springer Verlag , Berlin , pp. 514-523. ISBN 3540664521

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Abstract

Social learning is distinguished from innate behaviour and individual learning as a behavioural strategy. We investigate simple mechanisms for social learning in an evolutionary simulation of food-preference copying in Norway rats. These animals learn preferences by interacting with conspecifics, but, unexpectedly, they fail to learn aversions after interacting with a poisoned demonstrator. They also follow each other for food sites. Simulation results show that failure to discriminate between sick and healthy demonstrators may be due to food toxicity in foraging environments. A seemingly complex instance of social information transmission is explained through the action of simple behaviours in an appropriately structured environment.

Item Type:	Book Section
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	This is an author produced version of a paper published in Advances in artificial life : 5th European Conference, ECAL'99.
Academic Units:	The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering (Leeds) > School of Computing (Leeds)
Depositing User:	Repository Officer
Date Deposited:	13 Jun 2006
Last Modified:	08 Feb 2013 16:49
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Springer Verlag
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/1282

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