The main function of brains is to generate adaptive behavior. Far from being the stereotypical, robot-like insect, the fruit fly Drosophila exhibits astounding flexibility and chooses different courses of actions even under identical external circumstances. Due to the power of […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Posts Tagged decision-making
5 results.
Like a moth into the flame—phototaxis is an iconic example for innate preferences. Such preferences probably reflect evolutionary adaptations to predictable situations and have traditionally been conceptualized as hard-wired stimulus–response links. Perhaps for that reason, the century-old discovery of flexibility […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Few insect behaviors are more iconic than the proverbial moths circling the lamps at night. These observations are prime examples of the supposedly stereotypic insect responses to external stimuli. In contrast, in our new paper that just appeared today, we […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Posted on December 21, 2016
at 09:30
Comments Off on Why did the moth fly into the flame?
This is our first poster at this year’s SfN meeting in San Diego. It’s about decision-making in fruit flies. We find a probabilistic form of decision-making that suggests that without understanding the mechanisms behind this fundamental uncertainty, we will never […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Posted on November 13, 2016
at 17:46
Comments Off on Do flies in groups make individual choices?
During my flyfishing vacation last year, pretty much nothing was happening on this blog. Now that I’ve migrated the blog to WordPress, I can actually schedule posts to appear when in fact I’m not even at the computer. I’m using […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
