When more of the same is better
Authored by Jose F Fontanari
Date Published: 2016
DOI: 10.1209/0295-5075/113/28009
Sponsors:
Sao Paulo Research Foundation
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Model Documentation:
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Mathematical description
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Abstract
Problem solving (e.g., drug design, traffic engineering, software
development) by task forces represents a substantial portion of the
economy of developed countries. Here we use an agent-based model of
cooperative problem-solving systems to study the influence of diversity
on the performance of a task force. We assume that agents cooperate by
exchanging information on their partial success and use that information
to imitate the more successful agent in the system - the model. The
agents differ only in their propensities to copy the model. We find
that, for easy tasks, the optimal organization is a homogeneous system
composed of agents with the highest possible copy propensities. For
difficult tasks, we find that diversity can prevent the system from
being trapped in sub-optimal solutions. However, when the system size is
adjusted to maximize the performance the homogeneous systems outperform
the heterogeneous systems, i.e., for optimal performance, sameness
should be preferred to diversity. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2016
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