https://www.scienceofintelligence.de/press-release-sheep-are-more-democratic-than-you-think/
Collective motion brings to mind fascinating images, such as the flocks of birds over a corn field, or schools of barracudas as they move in circles in the water. These motions are also particularly appealing to physicists, as the patterns that emerge lend themselves to mathematical and statistical modeling that can help them better understand this phenomenon. When it comes to sheep, many studies describe the collective behavior in sheep flocks as a self-organized process where individuals continuously adapt their direction and speed to follow the motion and collective decisions of the group – as if the only leading force were the "collective brain" itself. This view, however, does not take into account that animals do not move continuously, or the possible hierarchies existing in many animal groups and the potential benefits of having a single individual lead the way.
[...] According to Gómez-Nava and collaborators, when the sheep stop to feed or rest between one collective motion phase and the next, they randomly pick a new group leader for the next round of flocking, thus transferring control to a new individual each time. In this way, individuals take turns being leaders and the flock's collective intelligence is achieved democratically, over many collective motion phases.
[...] The non-uniform internal interactions between sheep mean that the Vicsek model cannot be applied to the present case. Therefore, the scientists had to adapt the model differently in order to gain insights about these relationships. Through computational simulations, they found that the group might profit from both hierarchical and democratic mechanisms, despite the apparent incompatibility between these two concepts.. "In other words, the group can benefit from the line formation to navigate complex environments – like a maze – in an optimal way if the group leader has information about the location of the exit. In a way, thanks to the strong hierarchical structure of the file, the group takes advantage of the leader's private information during one collective motion phase", said Gómez-Nava. "However, there is also a democratic process resulting from the change of leaders from one motion phase to the next, which provides new benefits to the group, though this occurs over a longer time scale."
"If the group is in a situation where there are multiple sources of nutrients in different locations, and the individuals of the group have partial information about their location (e.g.: sheep A knows the location of nutrient A, sheep B knows the location of nutrient B and so on...), then the "leader-swapping" process provides the group with the possibility to visit all locations in an optimal way," said Gómez-Nava.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Monday February 06, @10:50AM (3 children)
Isn't that basically what it means to "be a sheep"? Human democracies and mobs work the same way.
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(Score: 3, Touché) by krishnoid on Monday February 06, @05:30PM (2 children)
No way, I totally disagree! But to resolve our disagreements definitively, I say we vote on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06, @09:52PM (1 child)
WAKE UP SHEAPLE!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday February 06, @10:26PM
At least don't be asleep [youtu.be] where people can trip over you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Monday February 06, @11:24AM (1 child)
TFA defines "leader selection" as a process where the flock start to move, following a single individual. I wouldn't call it leader selection. It is more the personal decision of every sheep to stay or to move. Once a threshold is passed, the whole group starts to move. As the TFS states, this behavior can help to explore the eatable neighborhood, I just would not put it in terms of leadership. If every sheep is "honest', i.e. every sheep is following the same standards, only moving quickly when it sees promising grazing grounds, the whole group benefits by following.
As UP (U for unrelated) states, this seems similar to how humans behave. I find it fascinating at one humbling, how simple rules seem to determine our behavior, which, more often than not we consider conscious.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Reziac on Tuesday February 07, @04:08AM
TFA sounds like they don't actually know much about sheep. Generally there's a dominant sheep who starts any movement, then a few more who move with the first one, then the rest are like "Wait for meeee!!" and if you ID individuals, you'll find it's usually the same ones in the same pattern. And sheep are anything but 'democratic" when it comes to food -- rather it's "me first, you third."
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by garfiejas on Monday February 06, @01:37PM
Sheep flocks have hierarchies often (it would seem) based on age, these are mostly female; and if you've seen one of the older ones lead a few over a busy single track bridge (Derbyshire, UK)- stopping traffic and humans - then go back for the rest (she had a slight limp so easily identifiable) you'd know Sheep behaviour is very complex; a small flock climbing 6ft walls for a laugh- as the gate was open next to it; once we came across a crowd of them late winter/early spring protecting a lambing ewe, the aggressiveness of several of the older ones was enough for us give them a wide berth.
Observing Sheep at sheepdog trails (to record sheepdog behaviour especially working in pairs, not the Sheep) can be very entertaining, would recommend; working out the bored ones, the ones that will challenge the dog or lead the rest away from the pens...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06, @04:55PM
What's for dinner?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06, @07:58PM
Are they democrats because they are sheep?
-or-
Are they sheep because they are democrats?
Ewe decide.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07, @02:40AM
The last I checked for most democracies the leader isn't randomly picked.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making [wikipedia.org]