Saturday, August 05, 2006
Schelling's approach may be worth taking further.
Existing programs are relatively naive but in social and conflict situations, mathematics is at least getting a little more steam up than it used to have. One tends to think how little the von Neumann/Morgenstern approach actually gave us but the present newer approaches and availability of more adequate home computers suggests that the field is still open for the traditional scientific hobbyist. More fun than SETI anyway, and there could be interesting possibilities from the generation of "flash mobs" even up to the development of actual interstellar communication.
"Schelling offers a framework for analysis by offering powerful evidence for the existence of focal points in social life. People who may never have met are nonetheless capable of coordinating their behavior under some circumstances. In one experiment, two people were instructed to think of a number between one and ten and told that both would be paid a reward if each arrived at the same answer. Subjects' ability to psyche one another out far exceeded chance. Perhaps even more surprising, certain open-ended questions can elicit a high amount of agreement. For example, in one experiment Schelling asked his subjects what they would do if they were simply told to go and meet someone in New York City on a certain day. Out of all the possibilities for when and where to meet, a majority, trying to intuit where and when other people would expect them to be, would have converged at the information booth in Grand Central Station at high noon!
Nothing paranormal is reflected in these experiments. Although it goes beyond what is definitely known to say what makes for a focal point, some features do seem to emerge pretty clearly from Schelling's experiments. For one thing, uniqueness seems to be important. When asked to pick a point on a map to await another person with the same map but with whom no meeting place has been arranged, many people will select a house on a map with one house and many crossroads, but will select a crossroads on a map with one intersection but many houses. And, of course, uniqueness makes sense when selecting focal points. Even if both parties select a house in the latter instance, the chance that they will select the same house is small. If one of many houses is distinct, however, it may be selected by some participants--a single mansion may be selected as a focal point even on a map with many houses. Another element that seems to figure in establishing a focal point is what could be called contextual prominence--for example, the number ``one'' in a series of numbers, or the center of a circular area or a mountain rising from a plane.""
http://tecfa.unige.ch/perso/staf/nova/blog/archives/000350.html
"Schelling segregation model
This project models the behavior of two types of turtles in a mythical pond. The red turtles and green turtles get along with one another. But each turtle wants to make sure that it lives near some of "its own." That is, each red turtle wants to live near at least some red turtles, and each green turtle wants to live near at least some green turtles. The simulation shows how these individual preferences ripple through the pond, leading to large-scale patterns."
http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/Segregation
a more complcated program is at
http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/demos/schelling/schellhp.htm
"Schelling offers a framework for analysis by offering powerful evidence for the existence of focal points in social life. People who may never have met are nonetheless capable of coordinating their behavior under some circumstances. In one experiment, two people were instructed to think of a number between one and ten and told that both would be paid a reward if each arrived at the same answer. Subjects' ability to psyche one another out far exceeded chance. Perhaps even more surprising, certain open-ended questions can elicit a high amount of agreement. For example, in one experiment Schelling asked his subjects what they would do if they were simply told to go and meet someone in New York City on a certain day. Out of all the possibilities for when and where to meet, a majority, trying to intuit where and when other people would expect them to be, would have converged at the information booth in Grand Central Station at high noon!
Nothing paranormal is reflected in these experiments. Although it goes beyond what is definitely known to say what makes for a focal point, some features do seem to emerge pretty clearly from Schelling's experiments. For one thing, uniqueness seems to be important. When asked to pick a point on a map to await another person with the same map but with whom no meeting place has been arranged, many people will select a house on a map with one house and many crossroads, but will select a crossroads on a map with one intersection but many houses. And, of course, uniqueness makes sense when selecting focal points. Even if both parties select a house in the latter instance, the chance that they will select the same house is small. If one of many houses is distinct, however, it may be selected by some participants--a single mansion may be selected as a focal point even on a map with many houses. Another element that seems to figure in establishing a focal point is what could be called contextual prominence--for example, the number ``one'' in a series of numbers, or the center of a circular area or a mountain rising from a plane.""
http://tecfa.unige.ch/perso/staf/nova/blog/archives/000350.html
"Schelling segregation model
This project models the behavior of two types of turtles in a mythical pond. The red turtles and green turtles get along with one another. But each turtle wants to make sure that it lives near some of "its own." That is, each red turtle wants to live near at least some red turtles, and each green turtle wants to live near at least some green turtles. The simulation shows how these individual preferences ripple through the pond, leading to large-scale patterns."
http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/Segregation
a more complcated program is at
http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/demos/schelling/schellhp.htm
# posted by uv : 8:07 PM
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
