On the evolutionary and behavioral dynamics of social coordination : models and theoretical aspects

An exploration is presented of the interplay between the situated activity of embodied autonomous organisms and the social dynamics they constitute in interaction, with special emphasis on evolutionary, ecological and behavioral aspects. The thesis offers a series of theoretical and methodological criticisms of recent investigations on the biology of social behavior and animal communication. An alternative theoretical framework, based on a systemic theory of biological autonomy, is provided to meet these criticisms and the elaboration of the corresponding theoretical arguments is supported by the construction and analysis of mathematical and computational models. A game of action coordination is studied by a series of game-theoretic, ecological and computational models which, by means of systematic comparisons, permit the identification of the evolutionary relevance of different factors like finite populations, ecological and genetic constraints, spatial patterns, discreteness and stochasticity. Only in an individual-based model is it found that cooperative action coordination is evolutionarily stable. This is due to the emergence of spatial clusters in the spatial distribution of players which break many of the in-built symmetries of the game and act as invariants of the dynamics constraining the path of viable evolution. An extension to this model explores other structuring effects by adding the possibility of parental influences on phenotypic development. The result is a further stabilization of cooperative coordination which is explained by the presence of self-promoting networks of developmental relationships which enslave the evolutionary dynamics. The behavioral aspects involved in the attainment of a coordinated state between autonomous systems are studied in a simulated model of embodied agents coupled through an acoustic medium. Agents must locate and approach each other only by means of continuous acoustic signals. The results show the emergence of synchronized rhythmic signalling patterns that resemble turn-taking which is accompanied by coherent patterns of movement. It is demonstrated that coordination results from the achievement of structural congruence between the agents during interaction. Submitted for the degree of DPhil University of Sussex