Cumulative route improvements spontaneously emerge in artificial navigators even in the absence of sophisticated communication or thought

Edwin S. Dalmaijer*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

Abstract

Homing pigeons (Columba livia) navigate by solar and magnetic compass, and fly home in idiosyncratic but stable routes when repeatedly released from the same location. However, when experienced pigeons fly alongside naive counterparts, their path is altered. Over several generations of turnover (pairs in which the most experienced individual is replaced with a naive one), pigeons show cumulative improvements in efficiency. Here, I show that such cumulative route improvements can occur in a much simpler system by using agent-based simulation. Artificial agents are in silico entities that navigate with a minimal cognitive architecture of goal-direction (they know roughly where the goal is), social proximity (they seek proximity to others and align headings), route memory (they recall landmarks with increasing precision), and continuity (they avoid erratic turns). Agents’ behaviour qualitatively matched that of pigeons, and quantitatively fitted to pigeon data. My results indicate that naive agents benefitted from being paired with experienced agents by following their previously established route. Importantly, experienced agents also benefitted from being paired with naive agents due to regression to the goal: naive agents were more likely to err towards the goal from the perspective of experienced agents’ memorised paths. This subtly biased pairs in the goal direction, resulting in intergenerational improvements of route efficiency. No cumulative improvements were evident in control studies in which agents’ goal-direction, social proximity, or memory were lesioned. These 3 factors are thus necessary and sufficient for cumulative route improvements to emerge, even in the absence of sophisticated communication or thought.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere3002644
Number of pages16
JournalPLoS Biology
Volume22
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Jun 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Edwin S. Dalmaijer. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Research Groups and Themes

  • Developmental (Psychological Science)
  • Mind and Brain (Psychological Science)

Keywords

  • agent-based model
  • artificial intelligence
  • cognitive requirements
  • cumulative cultural evolution
  • cumulative culture
  • navigation
  • pigeon flight
  • pigeons

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