From individual

to group decision making

May 1-4, 2023Weizmann Institute of Science

Decision making occurs in biology on all levels: from a single cell having to decide when to undergo a change in behavior in response to changing external conditions, to cognitive decisions made by individual animals (including humans), to collective decisions made by individuals in groups. While the underlying processes are different on each level, some of the constraints regarding the decision making process may be similar. For example, there is almost always a need to balance between the time it takes to reach the decision, and the accuracy of the decision with respect to the available information (i.e., the speed-accuracy tradeoff), or between exploring new options versus harvesting what we already know to be adequate options (the explore/exploit dilemma). How the decision making takes place in individuals and in groups is still an unsolved puzzle of great interest, and is the focus of this workshop.