TY - JOUR TI - Higher-order analysis of knowledge capacity and learning potential in social animal groups DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3RB7325 PY - 2014 AB - The ability to acquire increased individual knowledge through social dissemination of information is a principal benefit of social living. Information sharing among individuals offers numerous advantages from increased productivity to enhanced problem solving ability. In many cases, pathways formed for information sharing offer a compromise between time spent communicating information among participating individuals and the amount of knowledge amassed by each individual. Network models have yielded many insights into the nature of information sharing via pairwise interactions. However, for many social populations, information sharing does not occur strictly in pairs, but also in groups of three or more. Abstracting these scenarios using network models (or strictly pairwise interactions) may miss fundamental aspects driving the social dissemination of information. Here, I define and utilize a modeling framework based on simplicial sets, a concept from algebraic topology, which allows encapsulation of group interactions of arbitrary size, as well as several other features of higher-order interactions. I first present the concepts needed to implement a simplicial set model, detail advantages of the model in comparison to network models, and provide necessary mathematical definitions in an accessible manner (Chapter 1). I then use simplicial set models to investigate the effects of higher-order communication structure on the ability of a social population to build a global knowledge set (Chapter 2). I subsequently examine how placement of knowledgeable individuals within these higher-order structures affects global knowledge-building ability (Chapter 3). The results of these studies show that simplicial set models capture conceptually different social dynamics than are possible using network models. This model system allows us to investigate how information accumulates via interactions within and between sub-groups, offering insight into complex aspects of higher-order communication systems. The fundamental change in modeling strategy we offer here allows us to move from portraying knowledge as tokens passed from signaler to receiver, to portraying knowledge as building blocks from which novel ideas can emerge. Additionally, this dissertation lays the groundwork for future studies of higher-order social learning and consensus decision-making in social populations using simplicial set models that will both complement and enhance our existing knowledge of social information dissemination. KW - Ecology and Evolution KW - Social behavior in animals KW - Learning in animals LA - eng ER -