TY - JOUR
T1 - Computational models of collective behavior
AU - Goldstone, Robert L.
AU - Janssen, Marco A.
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to Robert Axelrod, Robert Axtell and Elinor Ostrom for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. More information about the laboratory can be found at http://cognitrn.psych.indiana.edu . This research was funded by NSF grant 0432894 and Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences grant R305H050116.
PY - 2005/9
Y1 - 2005/9
N2 - Computational models of human collective behavior offer promise in providing quantitative and empirically verifiable accounts of how individual decisions lead to the emergence of group-level organizations. Agent-based models (ABMs) describe interactions among individual agents and their environment, and provide a process-oriented alternative to descriptive mathematical models. Recent ABMs provide compelling accounts of group pattern formation, contagion and cooperation, and can be used to predict, manipulate and improve upon collective behavior. ABMs overcome an assumption that underlies much of cognitive science - that the individual is the crucial unit of cognition. The alternative advocated here is that individuals participate in collective organizations that they might not understand or even perceive, and that these organizations affect and are affected by individual behavior.
AB - Computational models of human collective behavior offer promise in providing quantitative and empirically verifiable accounts of how individual decisions lead to the emergence of group-level organizations. Agent-based models (ABMs) describe interactions among individual agents and their environment, and provide a process-oriented alternative to descriptive mathematical models. Recent ABMs provide compelling accounts of group pattern formation, contagion and cooperation, and can be used to predict, manipulate and improve upon collective behavior. ABMs overcome an assumption that underlies much of cognitive science - that the individual is the crucial unit of cognition. The alternative advocated here is that individuals participate in collective organizations that they might not understand or even perceive, and that these organizations affect and are affected by individual behavior.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.tics.2005.07.009
DO - 10.1016/j.tics.2005.07.009
M3 - Review article
C2 - 16085450
AN - SCOPUS:23944453110
SN - 1364-6613
VL - 9
SP - 424
EP - 430
JO - Trends in Cognitive Sciences
JF - Trends in Cognitive Sciences
IS - 9
ER -