Efficient system-wide coordination in noisy environments.
Many natural and social systems display global organization and coordination without centralized control. The origin of this global coordination is a topic of great current interest. Here we investigate a density-classification task as a model system for coordination and information processing in decentralized systems. We show that sophisticated strategies, selected under idealized conditions, are not robust to environmental changes. We also demonstrate that a simple heuristic is able to successfully complete the classification task under a broad range of environmental conditions. Our findings hint at the possibility that complex networks and ecologically efficient rules coevolve over time.
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
André A
AA
Moreira
Abhishek
A
Mathur
Daniel
D
Diermeier
Luís A N
LA
Amaral