Nonlinear Mathematics of Behavior

Before mating, most animals engage in extensive courtship activities, the reason why is still subject to speculation. An obvious suggestion is that information about the genetic suitability of a prospective mate is exchanged. In natural languages, nontrivial grammars provide the mechanisms for expressing detailed relationships between fundamental symbols and introducing redundancy, by which the receiver can check the validity of the arriving information. The proposed role would thus hint at a variable courtship language with nontrivial grammatical rules as the central element.

In this project, we investigate courtship under this angle, where the emphasis is on courtship graphs and a comparison to the expression power of modern spoken languages.