Do you have a default tendency to say: ‘Yes’? When do you abandon your own information and follow the herd? Can herds form because of individual selfish interests? How do bee colonies decide? Are all social animals herd animals? Is there no good way to ‘independently’ aggregate group preferences without a ‘dictator’? How does aggregation of preferences and information differ from each other? Must a jury consider everyone’s opinions? Does the nature of the problem (whether cognition, coordination, or cooperation) influence group decision making? Can majority decision making be completely chaotic? Do group sizes and social hierarchies matter? When can small groups outperform both experts as well as crowds (say, prediction markets)? Are diversity and independence (always?) crucial for a group to work effectively? How are situations with fixed and evolving preferences different? Are graded choices often better than binary? Are there powerful arguments for not being truthful in a group? Must free riders and liars be punished? How do inter & intra-group competition influence groups? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from economics & game theory (Prof. Arunava Sen, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi), cognitive sciences (Prof. Narayanan Srinivasan, CBCS, University of Allahabad, Allahabad), & animal behaviour (Dr. T. N. C. Vidya, JNCASR, Bangalore). Listen in....

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