Journal article 1522 views
Performance of human groups in social foraging: the role of communication in consensus decision making
A. J. King,
C. Narraway,
L. Hodgson,
A. Weatherill,
V. Sommer,
S. Sumner,
Andrew King 
Biology Letters, Volume: 7, Issue: 2, Pages: 237 - 240
Swansea University Author:
Andrew King
Full text not available from this repository: check for access using links below.
DOI (Published version): 10.1098/rsbl.2010.0808
Abstract
Social foraging in humans has a deep evolutionary history: early hominids searched for dispersed food sources in a patchy, uncertain environment. A fundamental assumption is that social foragers benefit by exchanging information about food sources, in order to make collective decisions based on pool...
| Published in: | Biology Letters |
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| ISSN: | 1744-9561 1744-957X |
| Published: |
2011
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| Online Access: |
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa13511 |
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| Abstract: |
Social foraging in humans has a deep evolutionary history: early hominids searched for dispersed food sources in a patchy, uncertain environment. A fundamental assumption is that social foragers benefit by exchanging information about food sources, in order to make collective decisions based on pooled information. We conducted the first experimental test of this assumption, and showed that, as predicted, communication significantly enhanced group performance. A further, unexpected result was that physical communicationthrough gesturing, rather than verbal communication, appeared to play a crucial role in the early stages of group interaction, facilitating consensus decision making by groups. The importance of gestures in human interactions may therefore be underestimated,and this has important implications for modern human societies, where communications are becoming increasingly dominated by virtual modes of communication that preclude the use of gestures. |
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| Item Description: |
Article addendum appeared in Communicative and Integrative Biology DOI: 10.4161/cib.4.6.17701 |
| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |
| Issue: |
2 |
| Start Page: |
237 |
| End Page: |
240 |