The value of constant surveillance in a risky environment

In risky environments, where threats are unpredictable and the quality of information about threats is variable, all individuals face two fundamental challenges: balancing vigilance against other activities, and determining when to respond to warning signals. The solution to both is to obtain continuous estimates of background risk, enabling vigilance to be concentrated during the riskiest periods and informing about the likely cost of ignoring warnings. Human surveillance organizations routinely produce such estimates, frequently derived from indirect cues. Here we show that vigilant individuals in an animal society (the pied babbler, Turdoides bicolor) perform a similar role. We ask (i) whether, in the absence of direct predator threats, pied babbler sentinels react to indirect information associated with increased risk and whether they communicate this information to group mates; (ii) whether group mates use this information to adjust their own vigilance, and whether this influences foraging success; and (iii) whether information provided by sentinels reduces the likelihood of inappropriate responses to alarm calls. Using playback experiments, we show that: (i) sentinels reacted to indirect predator cues (in the form of heterospecific alarm calls) by giving graded surveillance calls; (ii) foragers adjusted their vigilance in reaction to changes in surveillance calls, with substantial effects on foraging success; and (iii) foragers reduced their probability of responding to alarm calls when surveillance calls indicated lowered risk. These results demonstrate that identifying attacks as they occur is only part of vigilance: equally important is continuous surveillance providing information necessary for individuals to make decisions about their own vigilance and evasive action. Moreover, they suggest that a major benefit of group living is not only the increased likelihood of detecting threats, but a marked improvement in the quality of information available to each individual.     

Roosts as information centres: social learning of food preferences in bats

The short-tailed fruit bat, Carollia perspicillata, lives in groups in tree hollows and caves. To investigate whether these roosts might serve as information centres, we tested whether individuals' preferences for novel foods could be enhanced through social learning at the roost. We also determined whether socially learned preferences for novel foods were reversed through interaction with other roost mates by simulating changes in available food resources such as those associated with variations in timing of fruit production in different plant species. Bats exhibited socially induced preferences that were readily reversible. We suggest that for frugivorous bats, roosts can serve as centres for information exchange about novel and familiar, ephemeral foods without requiring conspecific recruitment to these resources.     

Accurate determination of phenotypic information from historic thoroughbred horses by single base extension

Historic DNA data have the potential to identify phenotypic information otherwise invisible in the historical, archaeological and palaeontological record. In order to determine whether a single nucleotide polymorphism typing protocol based on single based extension (SNaPshot™) could produce reliable phenotypic data from historic samples, we genotyped three coat colour markers for a sample of historic Thoroughbred horses for which both phenotypic and correct genotypic information were known from pedigree information in the General Stud Book. Experimental results were consistent with the pedigrees in all cases. Thus we demonstrate that historic DNA techniques can produce reliable phenotypic information from museum specimens.     

Uncertainty and Denial: A Resource-Rational Model of the Value of Information

Classical decision theory predicts that people should be indifferent to information that is not useful for making decisions, but this model often fails to describe human behavior. Here we investigate one such scenario, where people desire information about whether an event (the gain/loss of money) will occur even though there is no obvious decision to be made on the basis of this information. We find a curious dual trend: if information is costless, as the probability of the event increases people want the information more; if information is not costless, people''s desire for the information peaks at an intermediate probability. People also want information more as the importance of the event increases, and less as the cost of the information increases. We propose a model that explains these results, based on the assumption that people have limited cognitive resources and obtain information about which events will occur so they can determine whether to expend effort planning for them.     

Access to Awareness for Faces during Continuous Flash Suppression Is Not Modulated by Affective Knowledge

It is a controversially debated topic whether stimuli can be analyzed up to the semantic level when they are suppressed from visual awareness during continuous flash suppression (CFS). Here, we investigated whether affective knowledge, i.e., affective biographical information about faces, influences the time it takes for initially invisible faces with neutral expressions to overcome suppression and break into consciousness. To test this, we used negative, positive, and neutral famous faces as well as initially unfamiliar faces, which were associated with negative, positive or neutral biographical information. Affective knowledge influenced ratings of facial expressions, corroborating recent evidence and indicating the success of our affective learning paradigm. Furthermore, we replicated shorter suppression durations for upright than for inverted faces, demonstrating the suitability of our CFS paradigm. However, affective biographical information did not modulate suppression durations for newly learned faces, and even though suppression durations for famous faces were influenced by affective knowledge, these effects did not differ between upright and inverted faces, indicating that they might have been due to low-level visual differences. Thus, we did not obtain unequivocal evidence for genuine influences of affective biographical information on access to visual awareness for faces during CFS.     

Egg laying rather than host quality or host feeding experience drives habitat estimation in the parasitic wasp Nasonia vitripennis

In variable environments, sampling information on habitat quality is essential for making adaptive foraging decisions. In insect parasitoids, females foraging for hosts have repeatedly been shown to employ behavioral strategies that are in line with predictions from optimal foraging models. Yet, which cues exactly are employed to sample information on habitat quality has rarely been investigated. Using the gregarious parasitoid Nasonia vitripennis (Walker; Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae), we provided females with different cues about hosts to elucidate, which of them would change a wasp's posterior behavior suggesting a change in information status. We employed posterior clutch size decisions on a host as proxy for a female's estimation of habitat quality. Taking into account changes in physiological state of the foraging parasitoid, we tested whether different host qualities encountered previously change the subsequent clutch size decision in females. Additionally, we investigated whether other kinds of positive experiences—such as ample time to investigate hosts, host feeding, or egg laying—would increase a wasp's estimated value of habitat quality. Contrary to our expectations, quality differences in previously encountered hosts did not affect clutch size decisions. However, we found that prior egg laying experience changes posterior egg allocation to a host, indicating a change in female information status. Host feeding and the time available for host inspection, though correlated with egg laying experience, did not seem to contribute to this change in information status.     

Information coding in a laminar computational model of cat primary visual cortex

Neural populations across cortical layers perform different computational tasks. However, it is not known whether information in different layers is encoded using a common neural code or whether it depends on the specific layer. Here we studied the laminar distribution of information in a large-scale computational model of cat primary visual cortex. We analyzed the amount of information about the input stimulus conveyed by the different representations of the cortical responses. In particular, we compared the information encoded in four possible neural codes: (1) the information carried by the firing rate of individual neurons; (2) the information carried by spike patterns within a time window; (3) the rate-and-phase information carried by the firing rate labelled by the phase of the Local Field Potentials (LFP); (4) the pattern-and-phase information carried by the spike patterns tagged with the LFP phase. We found that there is substantially more information in the rate-and-phase code compared with the firing rate alone for low LFP frequency bands (less than 30 Hz). When comparing how information is encoded across layers, we found that the extra information contained in a rate-and-phase code may reach 90 % in Layer 4, while in other layers it reaches only 60 %, compared to the information carried by the firing rate alone. These results suggest that information processing in primary sensory cortices could rely on different coding strategies across different layers.     

Principal agent model based design and outsourcing of information value

IT outsourcing allows a business to reduce the cost of IT service delivery and improve the quality of IT service by taking advantage of the service provider’s economics of scale and technical expertise. However, the successful outsourcing of IT service is hampered by lack of guidance on how to design incentive contracts to encourage performance of the service provider, especially in the presence of information asymmetry and incentive divergence. In this article, we identify and characterize two asymmetric information factors: asymmetric effort information and asymmetric capability information. Depending on whether the service provider’s effort information and capability information is symmetric or not, we consider three information scenarios and characterize optimal incentive contracts for each scenario. We also introduce the concept of information value to quantify the adverse effects of the two asymmetric information factors. The results provide theoretical support for designing incentive contracts that mitigate the adverse effects of asymmetric information, and recommend effective guidance for activities so as to reduce the degree of information asymmetry.     

Laws restricting health insurers' use of genetic information: impact on genetic discrimination

Since 1991, 28 states have enacted laws that prohibit insurers' use of genetic information in pricing, issuing, or structuring health insurance. This article evaluates whether these laws reduce the extent of genetic discrimination by health insurers. From the data collected at multiple sites, we find that there are almost no well-documented cases of health insurers either asking for or using presymptomatic genetic test results in their underwriting decisions, either (a) before or after these laws have been enacted or (b) in states with or without these laws. By using both in-person interviews with insurers and a direct market test, we found that a person with a serious genetic condition who is presymptomatic faces little or no difficulty in obtaining health insurance. Furthermore, there are few indications that the degree of difficulty varies according to whether a state regulates the use of genetic information. Nevertheless, these laws have made it less likely that insurers will use genetic information in the future. Although insurers and agents are only vaguely aware of these laws, the laws have shaped industry norms and attitudes about the legitimacy of using this information.     

Exploring the costs and benefits of social information use: an appraisal of current experimental evidence

Research on social learning has focused traditionally on whether animals possess the cognitive ability to learn novel motor patterns from tutors. More recently, social learning has included the use of others as sources of inadvertent social information. This type of social learning seems more taxonomically widespread and its use can more readily be approached as an economic decision. Social sampling information, however, can be tricky to use and calls for a more lucid appraisal of its costs. In this four-part review, we address these costs. Firstly, we address the possibility that only a fraction of group members are actually providing social information at any one time. Secondly, we review experimental research which shows that animals are circumspect about social information use. Thirdly, we consider the cases where social information can lead to incorrect decisions and finally, we review studies investigating the effect of social information quality. We address the possibility that using social information or not is not a binary decision and present results of a study showing that nutmeg mannikins combine both sources of information, a condition that can lead to the establishment of informational cascades. We discuss the importance of empirically investigating the economics of social information use.     

Phylogenetic analysis of trophic associations

Ecologists frequently collect data on the patterns of association between adjacent trophic levels in the form of binary or quantitative food webs. Here, we develop statistical methods to estimate the roles of consumer and resource phylogenies in explaining patterns of consumer-resource association. We use these methods to ask whether closely related consumer species are more likely to attack the same resource species and whether closely related resource species are more likely to be attacked by the same consumer species. We then show how to use estimates of phylogenetic signals to predict novel consumer-resource associations solely from the phylogenetic position of species for which no other (or only partial) data are available. Finally, we show how to combine phylogenetic information with information about species' ecological characteristics and life-history traits to estimate the effects of species traits on consumer-resource associations while accounting for phylogenies. We illustrate these techniques using a food web comprising species of parasitoids, leaf-mining moths, and their host plants.     

What We Observe Is Biased by What Other People Tell Us: Beliefs about the Reliability of Gaze Behavior Modulate Attentional Orienting to Gaze Cues

For effective social interactions with other people, information about the physical environment must be integrated with information about the interaction partner. In order to achieve this, processing of social information is guided by two components: a bottom-up mechanism reflexively triggered by stimulus-related information in the social scene and a top-down mechanism activated by task-related context information. In the present study, we investigated whether these components interact during attentional orienting to gaze direction. In particular, we examined whether the spatial specificity of gaze cueing is modulated by expectations about the reliability of gaze behavior. Expectations were either induced by instruction or could be derived from experience with displayed gaze behavior. Spatially specific cueing effects were observed with highly predictive gaze cues, but also when participants merely believed that actually non-predictive cues were highly predictive. Conversely, cueing effects for the whole gazed-at hemifield were observed with non-predictive gaze cues, and spatially specific cueing effects were attenuated when actually predictive gaze cues were believed to be non-predictive. This pattern indicates that (i) information about cue predictivity gained from sampling gaze behavior across social episodes can be incorporated in the attentional orienting to social cues, and that (ii) beliefs about gaze behavior modulate attentional orienting to gaze direction even when they contradict information available from social episodes.     

Communication and Cognition in Primate Group Movement

We here review the communicative and cognitive processes underpinning collective group movement in animals. Generally, we identify 2 major axes to explain the dynamics of decision making in animal or human groups or aggregations: One describes whether the behavior is largely determined by simple rules such as keeping a specific distance from the neighbor, or whether global information is also factored in. The second axis describes whether or not the individual constituents of the group have overlapping or diverging interests. We then review the available evidence for baboons, which have been particularly well studied, but we also draw from further studies on other nonhuman primate species. Baboons and other nonhuman primates may produce specific signals in the group movement context, such as the notifying behavior of male hamadryas baboons at the departure from the sleeping site, or clear barks that are given by chacma baboons that have lost contact with the group or specific individuals. Such signals can be understood as expressions of specific motivational states of the individuals, but there is no evidence that the subjects intend to alter the knowledge state of the recipients. There is also no evidence for shared intentionality. The cognitive demands that are associated with decision making in the context of group coordination vary with the amount of information and possibly conflicting sources of information that need to be integrated. Thus, selective pressures should favor the use of signals that maintain group cohesion, while recipients should be selected to be able to make the decision that is in their own best interest in light of all the available information.     

Testing simulation theory with cross-modal multivariate classification of fMRI data

The discovery of mirror neurons has suggested a potential neural basis for simulation and common coding theories of action perception, theories which propose that we understand other people's actions because perceiving their actions activates some of our neurons in much the same way as when we perform the actions. We propose testing this model directly in humans with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) by means of cross-modal classification. Cross-modal classification evaluates whether a classifier that has learned to separate stimuli in the sensory domain can also separate the stimuli in the motor domain. Successful classification provides support for simulation theories because it means that the fMRI signal, and presumably brain activity, is similar when perceiving and performing actions. In this paper we demonstrate the feasibility of the technique by showing that classifiers which have learned to discriminate whether a participant heard a hand or a mouth action, based on the activity patterns in the premotor cortex, can also determine, without additional training, whether the participant executed a hand or mouth action. This provides direct evidence that, while perceiving others' actions, (1) the pattern of activity in premotor voxels with sensory properties is a significant source of information regarding the nature of these actions, and (2) that this information shares a common code with motor execution.     

Phylogenetic analysis and comparative data: a test and review of evidence

The question is often raised whether it is statistically necessary to control for phylogenetic associations in comparative studies. To investigate this question, we explore the use of a measure of phylogenetic correlation, lambda, introduced by Pagel (1999), that normally varies between 0 (phylogenetic independence) and 1 (species' traits covary in direct proportion to their shared evolutionary history). Simulations show lambda to be a statistically powerful index for measuring whether data exhibit phylogenetic dependence or not and whether it has low rates of Type I error. Moreover, lambda is robust to incomplete phylogenetic information, which demonstrates that even partial information on phylogeny will improve the accuracy of phylogenetic analyses. To assess whether traits generally show phylogenetic associations, we present a quantitative review of 26 published phylogenetic comparative data sets. The data sets include 103 traits and were chosen from the ecological literature in which debate about the need for phylogenetic correction has been most acute. Eighty-eight percent of data sets contained at least one character that displayed significant phylogenetic dependence, and 60% of characters overall (pooled across studies) showed significant evidence of phylogenetic association. In 16% of tests, phylogenetic correlation could be neither supported nor rejected. However, most of these equivocal results were found in small phylogenies and probably reflect a lack of power. We suggest that the parameter lambda be routinely estimated when analyzing comparative data, since it can also be used simultaneously to adjust the phylogenetic correction in a manner that is optimal for the data set, and we present an example of how this may be done.     

Maintaining a cognitive map in darkness: the need to fuse boundary knowledge with path integration

Spatial navigation requires the processing of complex, disparate and often ambiguous sensory data. The neurocomputations underpinning this vital ability remain poorly understood. Controversy remains as to whether multimodal sensory information must be combined into a unified representation, consistent with Tolman's "cognitive map", or whether differential activation of independent navigation modules suffice to explain observed navigation behaviour. Here we demonstrate that key neural correlates of spatial navigation in darkness cannot be explained if the path integration system acted independently of boundary (landmark) information. In vivo recordings demonstrate that the rodent head direction (HD) system becomes unstable within three minutes without vision. In contrast, rodents maintain stable place fields and grid fields for over half an hour without vision. Using a simple HD error model, we show analytically that idiothetic path integration (iPI) alone cannot be used to maintain any stable place representation beyond two to three minutes. We then use a measure of place stability based on information theoretic principles to prove that featureless boundaries alone cannot be used to improve localization above chance level. Having shown that neither iPI nor boundaries alone are sufficient, we then address the question of whether their combination is sufficient and - we conjecture - necessary to maintain place stability for prolonged periods without vision. We addressed this question in simulations and robot experiments using a navigation model comprising of a particle filter and boundary map. The model replicates published experimental results on place field and grid field stability without vision, and makes testable predictions including place field splitting and grid field rescaling if the true arena geometry differs from the acquired boundary map. We discuss our findings in light of current theories of animal navigation and neuronal computation, and elaborate on their implications and significance for the design, analysis and interpretation of experiments.     

Corporate environmental performance,environmental information disclosure,and financial performance: Evidence from China

As pollution emitters and energy users, firms are important causes of environmental problems, making it increasingly vital for them to strengthen their environmental management and information disclosure policies. However, firms doubt whether it pays to be green and whether it is worthwhile to disclose their environmental information, and there are hot debates on these questions in the literature. This paper analyzes the relationships among corporate environmental performance, environmental information disclosure, and financial performance in China, which witnessed rapid growth at the price of environmental degradation. With 950 observations from 475 Chinese listed companies between 2013 and 2014, we find a U-shaped nonlinear relationship between corporate environmental performance and environmental disclosure, an insignificant relationship between environmental performance and financial performance, and a negative relationship between environmental disclosure and financial performance, which is different from most findings in developed countries. The aforementioned results imply that Chinese firms have few motivations to disclose environmental information or improve environmental performance; therefore, mandatory disclosure of environmental information is necessary, and proper environmental policy should be made to punish environmental violations and encourage better environmental performance.     

Breaking down the Species Boundaries: Selective Pressures behind Interspecific Communication in Vertebrates

Studying heterospecific communication provides an opportunity to examine the dynamics of cross‐species social behaviour. It allows us to ask questions about the extent to which the transfer of information is adaptive or accidental and provides an empirically tractable context for manipulating relationships. To date, most studies of heterospecific communication have focussed on receivers. However, the selective pressures on signallers can be as important in determining the dynamics of interspecific communication. Here, we propose a simple framework for thinking about cross‐species information transfer, which (i) considers whether information exchange is either accidental or adaptive and (ii) whether it is unidirectional or bidirectional. To clearly classify interactions, it is necessary to quantify all of the payoffs of interspecific communication to both signallers and receivers. This requires accurate characterisation of the currency influenced by cross‐species communication (e.g. weight gain, foraging success, survival). However, quantifying the payoffs may be difficult, because each side may be benefiting via different currencies. To date, studies on heterospecific communication have focussed on only one dimension of a niche (usually antipredator or foraging signals). However, because niches are multidimensional, investigations should incorporate multiple aspects of a species’ niche, to get a better perspective on why we see certain patterns of information use between species.     

Is Consent Based on Trust Morally Inferior to Consent Based on Information?

Informed consent is considered by many to be a moral imperative in medical research. However, it is increasingly acknowledged that in many actual instances of consent to participation in medical research, participants do not employ the provided information in their decision to consent, but rather consent based on the trust they hold in the researcher or research enterprise. In this article we explore whether trust‐based consent is morally inferior to information‐based consent. We analyse the moral values essential to valid consent – autonomy, voluntariness, non‐manipulation, and non‐exploitation – and assess whether these values are less protected and promoted by consent based on trust than they are by consent based on information. We find that this is not the case, and thus conclude that trust‐based consent if not morally inferior to information‐based consent.     

Responses of Redfronted Lemurs to Experimentally Modified Alarm Calls: Evidence for Urgency-Based Changes in Call Structure

Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate how information about the affective state is expressed in vocalizations. Alarm calls can serve as model systems with which to study this general question. Therefore, we examined the information content of terrestrial predator alarm calls of redfronted lemurs ( Eulemur fulvus rufus ), group-living Malagasy primates. Redfronted lemurs give specific alarm calls only towards raptors, whereas calls given in response to terrestrial predators (woofs) are also used in other situations characterized by high arousal. Woofs may therefore have the potential to express the perceived risk of a given threat. In order to examine whether different levels of arousal are expressed in call structure, we analysed woofs given during inter-group encounters or in response to playbacks of a barking dog, assuming that animals engaged in inter-group encounters experience higher arousal than during the playbacks of dog barks. A multivariate acoustic analysis revealed that calls given during group encounters were characterized by higher frequencies than calls given in response to playbacks of dog barks. In order to examine whether this change in call structure is salient to conspecifics, we conducted playback experiments with woofs, modified in either amplitude or frequencies. Playbacks of calls with increased frequency or amplitude elicited a longer orienting response, suggesting that different levels of arousal are expressed in call structure and provide meaningful information for listeners. In conclusion, the results of our study indicate that the information about the sender's affective state is expressed in the structure of vocalizations.