How can we apply decision-making theories to wild animal behavior? Predictions arising from dual process theory and Bayesian decision theory.

Autor: Teichroeb JA; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada., Smeltzer EA; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada., Mathur V; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada., Anderson KA; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada., Fowler EJ; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada., Adams FV; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada., Vasey EN; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada., Tamara Kumpan L; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada., Stead SM; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada., Arseneau-Robar TJM; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.; Department of Biology, Concordia University, Montréal, Quebec, Canada.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: American journal of primatology [Am J Primatol] 2025 Jan; Vol. 87 (1), pp. e23565. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Oct 15.
DOI: 10.1002/ajp.23565
Abstrakt: Our understanding of decision-making processes and cognitive biases is ever increasing, thanks to an accumulation of testable models and a large body of research over the last several decades. The vast majority of this work has been done in humans and laboratory animals because these study subjects and situations allow for tightly controlled experiments. However, it raises questions about how this knowledge can be applied to wild animals in their complex environments. Here, we review two prominent decision-making theories, dual process theory and Bayesian decision theory, to assess the similarities in these approaches and consider how they may apply to wild animals living in heterogenous environments within complicated social groupings. In particular, we wanted to assess when wild animals are likely to respond to a situation with a quick heuristic decision and when they are likely to spend more time and energy on the decision-making process. Based on the literature and evidence from our multi-destination routing experiments on primates, we find that individuals are likely to make quick, heuristic decisions when they encounter routine situations, or signals/cues that accurately predict a certain outcome, or easy problems that experience or evolutionary history has prepared them for. Conversely, effortful decision-making is likely in novel or surprising situations, when signals and cues have unpredictable or uncertain relationships to an outcome, and when problems are computationally complex. Though if problems are overly complex, satisficing via heuristics is likely, to avoid costly mental effort. We present hypotheses for how animals with different socio-ecologies may have to distribute their cognitive effort. Finally, we examine the conservation implications and potential cognitive overload for animals experiencing increasingly novel situations caused by current human-induced rapid environmental change.
(© 2023 The Authors. American Journal of Primatology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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