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Paper at a Glance

Cooperation, Conflict and the Evolution of Communication
Jason Noble
In press in the journal Adaptive Behavior

Abstract This paper presents a general model that covers signalling with and without conflicts of interest between signallers and receivers. Krebs and Dawkins (1984) argued that a con­ flict of interests will lead to an evolutionary arms race between manipulative signallers and sceptical receivers, resulting in ever more costly signals; whereas common interests will lead to cheap signals or ``conspiratorial whispers''. Previous simulation models of the evolution of communication have usually assumed either cooperative or competitive contexts. Simple game­theoretic and evolutionary simulation models are presented; they suggest that signalling will evolve only if it is in the interests of both parties. In a model where signallers may inform receivers as to the value of a binary random variable, if signalling is favoured at all, then signallers will always use the cheapest and the second cheapest signal available. Costly sig­ nalling arms races do not get started. A more complex evolutionary simulation is described, featuring continuously variable signal strengths and reception thresholds. As the congruence of interests between the parties becomes more clear­cut, successively cheaper signals are ob­ served. The findings support a modified version of Krebs and Dawkins's argument. Several variations on the continuous­signalling model are explored.
1 Introduction Communication is an important aspect of the social behaviour of animals. Mammals and birds give alarm calls to warn conspecifics of approaching predators; ants and termites use signals to recruit others to the defence of the nest; bees and primates inform others in their colony or group of the discovery of new food sources. Such communication systems typically have obvious benefits. Consider the alarm calls of vervet monkeys, described by Seyfarth, Cheney, and Marler (1980). Vervets call when they ...

@article{noble99cooperationConflict,
  author={J. Noble},
  title={Cooperation, conflict and the evolution of communication},
  journal={Adaptive Behavior},
  year={1999},
  volume={7},
  number={3/4},
  pages={349-370},
  url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/noble99cooperationConflict.html}
}

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