Social decision-making driven by artistic explore–exploit tension

ABSTRACT

We studied social decision-making in the rule-based improvisational dance There Might Be Others, where dancers make in-the-moment compositional choices. Rehearsals provided a natural test-bed with communication restricted to non-verbal cues. We observed a key artistic explore–exploit tension in which the dancers switched between exploitation of existing artistic opportunities and riskier exploration of new ones. We investigated how the rules influenced the dynamics using rehearsals together with a model generalized from evolutionary dynamics. We tuned the rules to heighten the tension and modelled nonlinear fitness and feedback dynamics for mutation rate to capture the observed temporal phasing of the dancers' exploration-versus-exploitation. Using bifurcation analysis, we identified key controls of the tension and showed how they could shape the decision-making dynamics of the model much like turning a ‘dial’ in the instructions to the dancers could shape the dance. The investigation became an integral part of the development of the dance.

KEYWORDS:

• Dance improvisation
• explore–exploit decision-making
• communication through movement
• replicator-mutator and co-evolutionary dynamics
• collective behaviour
• pitchfork bifurcation

Acknowledgments

The authors thank everyone who contributed to making TMBO, most especially the dancers. K. O. and N. E. L. designed the research. K. O., R. L., D. T., and N. E. L. performed the research. K. O., B. D., A. F., and N.E.L. contributed new analytic tools. K. O., B. D., A. F., and N. E. L. analysed the data. N. E. L. wrote the paper with input from all co-authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Kayhan Özcimder received his bachelor's degree (2007) in Mechanical Engineering from Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey and his PhD (2015) and MSc degree (2012) in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University. Since February 2015 Kayhan has been with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Princeton Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University. His primary research interests are bio-inspired control, animal and human collective behavior and communication-through-motion in multi-agent systems.

Biswadip Dey received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Jadavpur University, India, in 2006, master’s degree in Systems & Control Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India, in 2008, and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, in 2015, respectively. Since March 2015, he has been with the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University, where he is an Associate Research Scholar at present. His primary research interests focus on nonlinear, geometric and optimal control, and their applications in collective robotics and autonomous systems.

Alessio Franci received his MS in Theoretical Physics from the University of Pisa in 2008 and his PhD in Physics and Control Theory from the University of Paris Sud 11 in 2012. Since April 2015 he is Associate Professor of Biomathematics at UNAM. His research interests span different fields but the focus is on the regulation principles of biological behaviors, in particular, rhythmic and excitable neuronal behaviors (from single neurons to cognition) and collective decision making. Thanks to local and international collaborations, his research has a marked interdisciplinary inclination that has recently started to open up to the Arts.

Rebecca Lazier choreographs and directs a project-based group of dancers in New York and is a Senior Lecturer in dance at Princeton University. A Julliard alum, she has produced her work in Hartford, Los Angeles, Istanbul, and New York. A film of her piece Coming Together/Attica, which premiered in June 2013, was featured in Venice, Italy as part of the Architecture Biennale. In New York Lazier’s work has been presented at venues including La MaMaMoves! Festival, Danspace Project, The Kitchen, the Guggenheim Museum, 92nd Street Y, Joyce SoHo, and Movement Research at the Judson Church. The company has toured to a variety of locales from Martha’s Vineyard to Los Angeles, Jacob’s Pillow to New Orleans, and Nova Scotia to Turkey.

Dan Trueman is a composer, fiddler, and electronic musician. Dan’s collaborators include: So Percussion, fiddler Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, guitarist Monica Mugan, the JACK Quartet, singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, bitKlavierist Adam Sliwinski, choreographer Rebecca Lazier, scientist Naomi Leonard, the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, Eighth Blackbird, and others. His work has been recognized by the Guggenheim Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, the Bessies, the Fulbright Commission, the American Composers Forum, the American Council of Learned Societies, Meet the Composer, among others. He is Professor of Music and Director of the Princeton Sound Kitchen at Princeton University, where he teaches counterpoint, electronic music, and composition.

Naomi Ehrich Leonard works on dynamics and control for multi-agent systems, both technological and natural. She led a multidisciplinary project that culminated in a first-of-its-kind autonomous ocean observing system, featuring a coordinated network of underwater robots. With biologists, she studies collective animal behavior and human decision-making. With artists, she explores dance, music and feedback dynamics. Recognitions include a MacArthur Fellowship and membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is Edwin S. Wilsey Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, associated faculty in Applied and Computational Mathematics, and Director of the Council on Science and Technology at Princeton University.

ORCID

Alessio Franci http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3911-625X

Naomi Ehrich Leonard http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5328-3871

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by a grant for Artists and Scientists or Engineers from the Office of the Dean for Research at Princeton University.