Animal Communication Theory

Ulrich E. Stegmann is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen. After training initially as a biologist, he subsequently switched to philosophy and now specialises in philosophy of biology. He was awarded a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship and has previously worked at the Universities of Cambridge and Bristol.

List of contributors; A primer on information and influence in animal communication Ulrich E. Stegmann; Part I. Varieties of Information: 1. Influence and information in communication networks Andrew G. Horn and Peter McGregor; 2. Animal communication as information-mediated influence Andrea Scarantino; 3. Communication as information use: insights from statistical decision theory Caitlin R. Kight, John M. McNamara, David W. Stephens and Sasha R. X. Dall; 4. Communication as a transfer of information: measurement, mechanism, and meaning R. Haven Wiley; 5. Natural information, intentional signs and animal communication Ruth G. Millikan; Part II. Influence and Manipulation: 6. Communication without meaning or information: abandoning language-based and informational constructs in animal communication Drew Rendall and Michael J. Owren; 7. Information in animal communication: when and why does it matter? Sahotra Sarkar; 8. Mitogenetic rays and the information metaphor: transmitted information has seen its day Eugene S. Morton and Richard G. Coss; 9. The importance of integrative biology to sexual selection and communication Michael J. Ryan; Part III. Case Studies: 10. Animal signals: always influence, sometimes information Claire Horisk and Reginald B. Cocroft; 11. Learned signals and consistency of delivery: a case against receiver manipulation in animal communication Carlos A. Botero and Selvino R. de Kort; 12. Information, inference and meaning in primate vocal behaviour Julia Fischer; 13. Information and uncertainty in meerkats and monkeys Colin Allen; 14. The neural representation of vocalisation perception Kate L. Christison-Lagay and Yale E. Cohen; Part IV. Animal Signals in Evolutionary Perspective: 15. The value of information in biology Michael Lachmann; 16. Information and influence in sender-receiver models, with applications to animal behaviour Peter Godfrey-Smith; Part V. From Animal Signals to Human Language: 17. Information, meaning, and animal communication Fred Adams and Steve Beighley; 18. Information, influence and inference in language evolution Thomas C. Scott-Phillips and Simon Kirby; Index.