Bullock, Seth. “An exploration of signalling behaviour by both analytic and simulation means for both discrete and continuous models.” In Fourth European Conference on Artificial Life , pp. 454-463. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997.
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Hurd’s (1995) model of a discrete actionresponse game, in which the interests of signallers and receivers con ict, is extended to address games in which, as well as signal cost varying with signaller quality, the value of an observer’s response to a signal is also dependent on signaller quality. It is shown analytically that non-handicap signalling equilibria exist for such a model. Using a distributed Genetic Algorithm (GA) to simulate the evolution of the model over time, the model’s sensitivity to initial conditions is explored, and an investigation into the attainability of the analytically derived Evolutionarily Stable Strategies (ESSs) is undertaken. It is discovered that the system is capable of attaining signalling equilibria in addition to those derived via analytic techniques, and that these additional equilibria are consistent with the denition of conventional signalling. Grafen’s (1990) proof of Zahavi’s handicap principle is generalised in an analogous manner, and it is demonstrated analytically that non-handicap signalling equilibria also exist for this continuous model of honest signalling.