Dynamic scaling regimes of collective decision making

¹  Department of Physics, Umeå University - 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
²  Umeå Plant Science Centre, Department of Plant Physiology, Umeå University - 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
³  Department of Computer Science, University of New Mexico - Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
⁴  Department of Computational Biology, School of Computer Science and Communication, Royal Institute of Technology - 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

Received: 24 August 2007
Accepted: 12 November 2007

Abstract

We investigate a social system of agents faced with a binary choice. We assume there is a correct, or beneficial, outcome of this choice. Furthermore, we assume agents are influenced by others in making their decision, and that the agents can obtain information that may guide them towards making a correct decision. The dynamic model we propose is of nonequilibrium type, converging to a final decision. We run it on random graphs and scale-free networks. On random graphs, we find two distinct regions in terms of the finalizing time —the time until all agents have finalized their decisions. On scale-free networks, on the other hand, there do not seem to be such distinct scaling regions.