Optimized reduction of uncertainty in bursty human dynamics

Authored by Kimmo Kaski, Hang-Hyun Jo, Eunyoung Moon

Date Published: 2012-01-05

DOI: 10.1103/physreve.85.016102

Sponsors: European Union

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

Human dynamics is known to be inhomogeneous and bursty but the detailed understanding of the role of human factors in bursty dynamics is still lacking. In order to investigate their role we devise an agent-based model, where an agent in an uncertain situation tries to reduce the uncertainty by communicating with information providers while having to wait time for responses. Here the waiting time can be considered as cost. We show that the optimal choice of the waiting time under uncertainty gives rise to the bursty dynamics, characterized by the heavy tailed distribution of optimal waiting time. We find that in all cases the efficiency for communication is relevant to the scaling behavior of the optimal waiting time distribution. On the other hand, the cost turns out in some cases to be irrelevant depending on the degree of uncertainty and efficiency.

Tags