Vicsek, Tamás
(Eötvös
University, Department of Biological Physics)
Why do we live in hierarchies?
Social structure has the potential to impact the way that information flows through groups and the decisions that emerge. Hierarchical organization is extremely widespread and it likely contribute to the optimal functioning of a society across multiple contexts. Nonetheless, there is currently no unified theoretical framework for quantitatively interpreting hierarchical social structures, and no clearly defined approach for empirically understanding the costs and benefits of living in a multi-level hierarchical society. i) First we show that even in a group of homing pigeons the decisions are made in a hierarchical manner due to the differences of the abilities of the pigeons to find the best route home. ii) Next, inspired by this experimental finding we address the question of the optimal composition of a team from the point of minimizing the cost (total knowledge of the members) while maximizing the performance of the group. We find that the optimal distribution of competences is a highly skewed (hierarchically ordered) function. iii) Finally, we describe a model which leads to the spontaneous self-organization of a hierarchical network of directed interactions (leader-follower relations) even among in principle non-cooperating individuals. This network is relatively stable against fluctuations, but is efficient as far as concerning the guessing of the right answer even if this answer is changing in time (i.e., the network can adapt to changing conditions).
Date: Oct. 21, Tuesday 4:15pm
Place: BME, Main Building „K”, 1st Floor, Room 50