In humans and other gregarious animals, collective decision-making is a robust behavioural
feature of groups. Pooling individual information is also fundamental for modern societies, in …

In recent years, the concept of self-organization has been used to understand collective
behaviour of animals. The central tenet of self-organization is that simple repeated …

Humans possess an extraordinary capacity for cultural production, from the arts and
language to science and technology. How did the human mind—and the uniquely human …

Fish travel in schools, birds migrate in flocks, honeybees swarm, and ants build trails. How
and why do these collective behaviors occur? Exploring how coordinated group patterns …

Evolution selects for traits that are of adaptive value and increase the fitness of an individual
or population. Numerical competence, the ability to estimate and process the number of …

Many species are known to acquire valuable life skills and information from others, but until
recently it was widely believed that animals did not actively facilitate learning in others …

Animal groups are said to make consensus decisions when group members come to agree
on the same option. Consensus decisions are taxonomically widespread and potentially …

Decisions reached through consensus are often more accurate, because they efficiently
utilize the diverse information possessed by group members [1–3]. A trust in consensus …

The problem of how to compromise between speed and accuracy in decision-making faces
organisms at many levels of biological complexity. Striking parallels are evident between …

During consensus decision making, individuals in groups balance personal information
(based on their own past experiences) with social information (based on the behavior of …