A Virtual Laboratory for the Study of History and Cultural Dynamics

Authored by Juan-Luis Suarez, Fernando Sancho

Date Published: 2011-10

Sponsors: Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)

Platforms: NetLogo

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Pseudocode

Model Code URLs: http://projects.cultureplex.ca/

Abstract

This article presents a Virtual Laboratory that enables the researcher to try hypothesis and confirm data analysis about different historical processes and cultural dynamics. This Virtual Cultural Laboratory (VCL) is developed using agent-based modeling technology. Individuals' tendencies and preferences as well as the behavior of cultural objects in the transformation of cultural information are taken into consideration. In addition, the effect of local interactions at different scales over time and space is visualized through the VCL interface. Information repositories, cultural items, borders, population size, individual' tendencies and other features are determined by the user. Finally, the researcher can also isolate specific factors whose effect on the global system might be of interest to the researcher. All the code can be found at http://projects.cultureplex.ca/

Tags

Virtual Laboratory NetLogo Cultural Complexity Cultural Dynamics Multi-Agent Based Simulation