Adaptive Behavior Abstracts, 8 (1)
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Adaptive Behavior
Volume 8, Number 1
Winter 2000
Table of Contents
Mohamed A. F. Noor
On the Evolution of Female Mating Preferences as Pleiotropic Byproducts of Adaptive Evolution
Adaptive Behavior, 8 (1), 3-12.
Charlotte K. Hemelrijk
Self-Reinforcing Dominance Interactions Between Virtual Males and Females. Hypothesis Generation for Primate Studies
Adaptive Behavior, 8 (1), 13-26.
Ezequiel A. Di Paolo
Behavioral Coordination, Structural Congruence and Entrainment in a Simulation of Acoustically Coupled Agents
Adaptive Behavior, 8 (1), 27-48.
Cynthia Breazeal and Brian Scassellati
Infant-like Social Interactions between a Robot and a Human Caregiver
Adaptive Behavior, 8 (1), 49-74.
The Design of Animal Communication
By Ezequiel A. Di Paolo
Review of The Design of Animal Communication, by Marc D. Hauser and Mark Konishi. MIT Press, 1999.
On the Evolution of Female Mating Preferences as Pleiotropic Byproducts of Adaptive Evolution
By Mohamed A. F. Noor
Abstract
Although evidence is mounting that female mating preferences evolve at least in part as incidental (pleiotropic) consequences of alleles favored by natural selection, it is less clear how such preferences can evolve when they are initially maladaptive, as by delaying reproduction. I extend a previous model by Tomlinson and O'Donald (1996) to investigate how dominance, sex-linkage, and sex -limitation affect the evolution of a costly new female preference. I find that recessivity of the new female preference can allow it to spread as a pleiotropic byproduct of adaptive evolution even when the novel preference is initially extremely detrimental. Further, three predictions of this model are satisfied by empirical data on the genetics of female mating preferences in Drosophila. Taken together, these findings suggest that incidental association of novel female preferences with alleles under selection could be a potent force in the origin and evolution of novel female mating preferences.Key Words
sensory bias; sexual selection; pleiotropy
Self-Reinforcing Dominance Interactions Between Virtual Males and Females. Hypothesis Generation for Primate Studies
By Charlotte K. Hemelrijk
Abstract
Although in group-living primates an individual's dominance position as a consequence of its social skills with both sexes, there are few data and hardly any theory of male-female dominance relationships. In order to stimulate a systematic study on this topic, I present a simple individual-oriented model on inter-sexual dominance and how it is influenced by species characteristics of primates, such as intensity of aggression and sex ratio. The model represents a virtual world inhabited by entities that do nothing except grouping and performing dominance interactions in which the effects of winning and losing are self-reinforcing. VirtualMales start out with a higher winning tendency and are characterized by a higher intensity of aggression than VirtualFemales. To ensure comparability to behavioral patterns of real animals, I record the same behavioral aspects of the artificial entities as have been collected for real primates. Results show that due to the high impact of acts in fiercely aggressive VirtualSpecies, the variation in dominance values is larger than in mild ones. As a consequence, the rank of the most subordinate VirtualMale is lower than that of the lowest-ranking mild VirtualMale and, counter-intuitively, VirtualMales dominate relatively fewer VirtualFemales in fierce than mild species. Correspondence of model results to findings on primates allows us to use insight obtained from the model to derive hypotheses on the relation between intensity of aggression, sex ratio, male mounting behavior and female choice of primates.Key Words
self-reinforcing dominance interactions; intensity of aggression; sex ratio; dominance relationships between males and females; unidirectionality of attack; primates
Behavioral Coordination, Structural Congruence and Entrainment in a Simulation of Acoustically Coupled Agents
By Ezequiel A. Di Paolo
Abstract
Social coordination is studied in a simulated model of autonomous embodied agents that interact acoustically. Theoretical concepts concerning social behavior are presented from a systemic perspective and their usefulness is evaluated in interpreting the results obtained. Two agents moving in an unstructured arena must locate each other, and remain within a short distance of one another for as long as possible using noisy continuous acustic interaction. Evolved dynamical recurrent neural networks are used as the control architecture. Acoustic coupling poses nontrivial problems like discriminating "self" from "non-self" and structuring production of signals in time so as to minimize interference. Detailed observation of the most frequently evolved behavioral strategy shows that interacting agents perform rhythmic signals leading to the coordination of movement. During coordination, signals become entrained in an anti-phase mode that resembles turn-taking. Perturbation techniques show that signalling behavior not only performs an external function, but it is also integrated into the movement of the producting agent, thus showing the difficulty of separating behavior into social and non-social classes. Structural congruence between agents is shown by exploring internal dynamics as well as the response of single agents in the presence of signalling beacons that reproduce the signal patterns of the interacting agents. Lack of entrainment with the signals produced by the beacons shows the importance of transient periods of mutual dynamic perturbation wherein agents achieve congruence.Key Words
social behavior; embodied autonomous agents; acoustic interaction; coordination; entrainment; structural congruence
Infant-like Social Interactions between a Robot and a Human Caregiver
By Cynthia Breazeal and Brian Scassellati
Abstract
From birth, human infants are immersed in a social environment that allows them to learn by leveraging the skills and capabilities of their caregivers. A critical pre-cursor to this type of social learning is the ability to maintain interaction levels that are neither overwhelming nor under-stimulating. In this paper, we present a mechanism for an autonomous robot to regulate the intensity of its social interactions with a human. Similar to the feedback from infant to caregiver, the robot uses expressive displays to modulate the interaction intensity. This mechanism is integrated within a general framework that combines perception, attention, drives, emotions, behavior selection, and motor acts. We present a specific implementation of this architecture that enables the robot to react appropriately to both social stimuli (faces) and non-social stimuli (moving toys) while maintaining a suitable interaction intensity. We present results from both face-to-face interactions and interactions mediated through a toy.
Pages 73-77
Ezequiel A. Di Paolo
The Design of Animal Communication
Review of The Design of Animal Communication, by Marc D. Hauser and Mark Konishi. MIT Press, 1999.
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