Processing power limits social group size: computational evidence for the cognitive costs of sociality
Sociality is primarily a coordination problem. However, the social (or communication) complexity hypothesis suggests that the kinds of information that can be acquired and processed may limit the size and/or complexity of social groups that a species can maintain. We use an agent-based model to test...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Royal Society
2013
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| _version_ | 1797059639528914944 |
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| author | Dávid-Barrett, T Dunbar, R |
| author_facet | Dávid-Barrett, T Dunbar, R |
| author_sort | Dávid-Barrett, T |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Sociality is primarily a coordination problem. However, the social (or communication) complexity hypothesis suggests that the kinds of information that can be acquired and processed may limit the size and/or complexity of social groups that a species can maintain. We use an agent-based model to test the hypothesis that the complexity of information processed influences the computational demands involved. We show that successive increases in the kinds of information processed allow organisms to break through the glass ceilings that otherwise limit the size of social groups: larger groups can only be achieved at the cost of more sophisticated kinds of information processing that are disadvantageous when optimal group size is small. These results simultaneously support both the social brain and the social complexity hypotheses. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T20:07:08Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:2942a5d0-05f2-4679-ab9c-01452ab324e0 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T20:07:08Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | Royal Society |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:2942a5d0-05f2-4679-ab9c-01452ab324e02022-03-26T12:18:09ZProcessing power limits social group size: computational evidence for the cognitive costs of socialityJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:2942a5d0-05f2-4679-ab9c-01452ab324e0EnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordRoyal Society2013Dávid-Barrett, TDunbar, RSociality is primarily a coordination problem. However, the social (or communication) complexity hypothesis suggests that the kinds of information that can be acquired and processed may limit the size and/or complexity of social groups that a species can maintain. We use an agent-based model to test the hypothesis that the complexity of information processed influences the computational demands involved. We show that successive increases in the kinds of information processed allow organisms to break through the glass ceilings that otherwise limit the size of social groups: larger groups can only be achieved at the cost of more sophisticated kinds of information processing that are disadvantageous when optimal group size is small. These results simultaneously support both the social brain and the social complexity hypotheses. |
| spellingShingle | Dávid-Barrett, T Dunbar, R Processing power limits social group size: computational evidence for the cognitive costs of sociality |
| title | Processing power limits social group size: computational evidence for the cognitive costs of sociality |
| title_full | Processing power limits social group size: computational evidence for the cognitive costs of sociality |
| title_fullStr | Processing power limits social group size: computational evidence for the cognitive costs of sociality |
| title_full_unstemmed | Processing power limits social group size: computational evidence for the cognitive costs of sociality |
| title_short | Processing power limits social group size: computational evidence for the cognitive costs of sociality |
| title_sort | processing power limits social group size computational evidence for the cognitive costs of sociality |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT davidbarrettt processingpowerlimitssocialgroupsizecomputationalevidenceforthecognitivecostsofsociality AT dunbarr processingpowerlimitssocialgroupsizecomputationalevidenceforthecognitivecostsofsociality |