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Cheer up, humans, Slime moulds are irrational, too A study by the University of Sydney has found that slime moulds and humans have some behavioral traits in common, such as ** irrational decisions. Tests have shown that slime moulds also go for the dumb options. The theory is pretty **: Economically rational decisions are normal in foraging for food. It’s the practice, as the University of Sydney has discovered, that creates the problems. Humans will make decisions based on a selection of choices which can be manipulated: If there’s only two choices, it’s easy enough. Great, or OK-ish So if you get a choice between a Ferrari and a skateboard, you’re more likely to go for the Ferrari. But if you get three choices, like: Great OK-ish A third choice which is expensive You’re far more likely to pick the Ferrari whether you can afford it or not. Nothing else has changed, it’s the extra option that creates the decision. In advertising, you’ll get a commercial with a Great White shark circling around, a banker circling around, and an entirely unnecessary credit card, the credit card looks great. Rational behavior goes out the window, because the environment is very different for the choices. Slime moulds think the same way. A control which gave a slime mould the choice of food in a safe place in the dark, high value food exposed to light, (which slime moulds don’t like) and lower value food in a safe place in the dark, the slime mould went for the lower value food in the dark. Wrong decision, but there was a marked preference for the lower value food in controlled tests. So slime moulds aren’t infallible after all. Not a conscious decision, you may think. The problem is that conscious or not, they make exactly the same type of decisions as humans. Other choices were made, so it’s not a case of one particularly dumb slime mould messing up the experiments. The University of Sydney, being an Australian tertiary institution, is unavoidably confronted with slime moulds, usually during funding season, so it’s possible this is more of a business study than purely academic. However, the behavioral choice issue has been under scrutiny for many years. Decision ** is a major part of behavioral analysis, and this study has actually deepened the debate. Slime moulds are a particularly efficient form of life. They’re practically universal throughout the ecology of the Earth, and are a major part of the biological cycles. They can take a fallen tree apart and return the nutrients to the ecology. So how they find and process food is hardly a minor study. At this stage, the findings indicate that decision ** can be extremely complex, and that it’s best not to confuse your slime moulds. A decisive slime mould is a happy slime mould By Paul Wallis. | 
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发表于 2010-8-12 20:39
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