Final answer:
The costly information hypothesis suggests a tradeoff between quantity and quality of information. Organisms must allocate limited resources to gather and process information efficiently.
Step-by-step explanation:
The costly information hypothesis suggests an evolutionary tradeoff between quantity and quality of information. This hypothesis proposes that there is a limited amount of resources available to an individual or organism for gathering and processing information, and as a result, there is a tradeoff between gathering a large quantity of information or gathering a smaller amount of higher quality information.
For example, let's consider a predator searching for prey. It could spend a lot of time and energy searching a large area and gathering information on many potential prey items, but the quality of this information may be low. Alternatively, it could focus its efforts on a smaller area and gather more detailed information about fewer potential prey items, increasing the quality of the information it gathers.
This tradeoff is observed in various biological systems, such as decision-making, foraging, and social behavior, where individuals must allocate their limited resources to gather and process information in the most efficient way.