The study compares how ants and humans solve geometric puzzles cooperatively. It was observed that ants tend to coordinate their actions more efficiently when working as a team, based on simple local interactions. Humans, on the other hand, face greater difficulties when working in groups to solve problems of this nature.
Living in groups offers many advantages, and one of the most interesting is the concept of “collective cognition”. This refers to the ability of a group to integrate information and react in a coordinated manner to the environment, potentially surpassing the abilities of the individuals that make up the group.
When members of a group cooperate and share information, their combined cognitive abilities can surpass those of any one member acting alone.
This enhancement of collective abilities is crucial, as it allows groups to expand their problem-solving capabilities and face complex challenges. However, coordination in large groups is not always simple; collective efforts can often be inefficient or even counterproductive.
Direct comparison between the cognitive abilities of large groups and individuals can be difficult and often meaningless, as different group sizes interact with the environment at different scales.
A classic example is the comparison between an individual neuron and the brain as a whole. It makes no sense to measure the cognitive capacity of a single neuron relative to the entire brain, since they operate at very different levels.
Similarly, directly comparing the cognition of an individual with that of a group is challenging, and there are few examples where this has been done quantitatively.
Species that engage in cooperative load-carrying provide a unique opportunity to make meaningful comparisons between individuals and groups. In these species, small loads can be carried by individuals, while larger loads require the coordinated effort of a group.
Increasing the number of members of a group not only increases the physical strength available, but can also improve the group’s ability to navigate complex and cluttered environments.
Ants of the species Paratrechina longicornis, which perform cooperative cargo transport, were used in the study. Image: Rajesh V. Sanap.
To test whether working in groups measurably improves cognitive abilities, scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel developed an experiment using a physical puzzle called “piano-movers.”
The puzzle involves transporting a T-shaped load through a series of chambers connected by narrow passages. The load must be maneuvered through these passages efficiently, without unnecessary steps.
The scientists created different-sized versions of this puzzle to test both humans and ants.
People were instructed to solve the puzzle, while ants, motivated to carry the load to their nest, behaved as if they were transporting food.
The puzzle posed significant challenges for both. For humans, the challenge lay in accurate length assessments, mental rotations, and understanding of symmetry.
For the ants, the difficulty lay in simple pheromone-based communication, which did not take into account the geometry of the cargo or passages.
The piano movement puzzle. (A) Snapshots of two ant solvers: a single ant (left) and a large group of ants (right) during a solution attempt, with zoom-ins on the carrier ants. The configuration of the load within the puzzle is defined by its center of mass position and its orientation angle. (B) Snapshots of two human solvers: a single person (left) and a large group of people (right) during a solution attempt. In panels A and B, the load in each snapshot is highlighted in red. (C) Possible states of the load within the puzzle. Green arrows indicate the best solutions to the puzzle.
Different sizes of groups of ants and people were tested. For the ants, small groups (about 7 ants) and large groups (about 80 ants) faced different scale versions of the puzzle.
Recording of a succession of single ants solving the puzzle (sped up 10 times and cropped so that long periods of time without cargo movement are removed). The distance between the red dots on the arena floor is 2 cm.
For humans, individuals, small groups (6–9 individuals) and large groups (16–26 individuals) attempted to solve corresponding versions of the puzzle. Within this group, they were subdivided into a group that could communicate and a group that could not communicate.
Footage of a single person solving the puzzle (sped up 10 times).
The results showed that the ants, despite their simple communication, were more effective in large groups. Their efficient coordination, based on simple interactions, allowed them to significantly outperform individual ants or small groups.
Footage of a large group of ants solving the puzzle (sped up 10 times). The distance between the red dots on the arena floor is 2 cm.
Humans, on the other hand, faced greater challenges, especially when their communication was restricted, which made it difficult for them to coordinate their efforts as well as the ants.
Humans, especially in groups with restricted communication, had difficulty matching the ants’ performance, indicating that communication is essential for effective human collaboration.
While groups of people with restricted communication communicate through forces like ants, they did not show a corresponding improvement in numbers. In fact, the opposite was true, as these groups performed significantly worse than individuals.
Footage of a large group of people with restricted communication solving the puzzle (sped up 10 times).
Groups that were allowed to communicate reversed this effect and marginally outperformed individuals.
This study highlighted that although humans have advanced cognitive abilities, their group collaboration may be less efficient without clear communication.
In contrast, ants, with their simple and direct interactions, have demonstrated a social organization that allows them to effectively tackle complex challenges.
The research also showed how different forms of communication and social organization affect the efficiency of group problem-solving.
While ants use an emergent collective memory that helps them perform systematic and orderly scans, humans, even with their greater cognitive flexibility, need advanced communication to improve group cooperation.
This study revealed important differences between how ants and humans solve problems collectively, suggesting that in certain contexts, the simple organization of ants may be more effective than the superior cognitive abilities of humans.
This has implications for understanding collective cognition and may inspire the design of cooperative systems in robotics and other fields.
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Comparing cooperative geometric puzzle solving in ants versus humans
Tabea Dreyer, Amir Haluts, Amos Korman, Nir Gov, Ehud Fonio, and Ofer Feinerman
PNAS. 122 (1) e2414274121
Abstract:
Biological ensembles use collective intelligence to tackle challenges together, but suboptimal coordination can undermine the effectiveness of group cognition. Testing whether collective cognition exceeds that of the individual is often impractical since different organizational scales tend to face disjoint problems. One exception is the problem of navigating large loads through complex environments and toward a given target. People and ants stand out in their ability to efficiently perform this task not just individually but also as a group. This provides a rare opportunity to empirically compare problem-solving skills and cognitive traits across species and group sizes. Here, we challenge people and ants with the same “piano-movers” load maneuvering puzzle and show that while ants perform more efficiently in larger groups, the opposite is true for humans. We find that although individual ants cannot grasp the global nature of the puzzle, their collective motion translates into emergent cognitive skills. They encode short-term memory in their internally ordered state and this allows for enhanced group performance. People comprehend the puzzle in a way that allows them to explore a reduced search space and, on average, outperform ants. However, when communication is restricted, groups of people resort to the most obvious maneuvers to facilitate consensus. This is reminiscent of ant behavior, and negatively impacts their performance. Our results exemplify how simple minds can easily enjoy scalability while complex brains require extensive communication to cooperate efficiently.
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