Fellows Lecture: R. Haven Wiley

Fellows lecture: R. Haven Wiley, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, A Signal-Detection Equilibrium in the Evolution of Communication. Tuesday 8:45 -- 9:45 am

Abstract

Much recent thought about the evolution of communication has focused on the conditions for honesty and, in particular, on costly, condition-dependent signals as a prerequisite for honesty. There has been little progress in conceptualizing the coevolution of signaler and receiver behavior. An alternative approach based on the constraints imposed by signal detection leads to much different emphases. It suggests that communication should evolve toward a signaler-receiver equilibrium, at which the signaler's optimal behavior is a condition of the receiver's performance and the receiver's optimal performance is a condition of the signaler's behavior. With this approach, honesty on average is the expected outcome of communication, although some deception is inevitable. Signals evolve to improve detection by receivers, although some misunderstanding is inevitable. Signals usually have costs, but the primary determinants of the nature of communication are instead the frequencies and costs of errors. This approach emphasizes that understanding the evolution of signals requires an understanding of the full natural context of communication. I thus end with a plea for a new phase of experimentation in the field.

Website: http://www.unc.edu/~rhwiley/