What ice-fishing competitions reveal about human decision-making
Whether gathering berries, hunting, or fishing, humans searching for food make decisions not only based on personal experience but also by observing others. In a large-scale field study, an international team of researchers ...
The results have been published in the journal Science.
The research team used GPS watches and wearable cameras to observe the behavior of 74 experienced ice fishers during competitions in eastern Finland. Across 477 fishing trips on 10 different lakes, they recorded more than 16,000 decisions about where to fish and when to leave a location.
Using these high-resolution movement and contextual data, the scientists built computational models to understand the underlying decision-making processes.
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The analysis shows that ice fishers combine three types of information: their personal catch experience, the behavior of other participants, and ecological features such as the structure of the lakebed.
"Whether people rely more on others or on themselves depends to some degree on their own success," says first author Alexander Schakowski, a postdoctoral researcher from the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
Those who are successful in catching fish rely more on their own knowledge; those who remain unsuccessful orient themselves more strongly toward other anglers.
Equipped with GPS watches and portable cameras, the ice fishers headed out onto the lake. They recorded their routes, movements, catches, and the start and end of each fishing attempt. Credit: Petri T. Niemelä