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Coordination learning in stag hunt games with application to emergency management
Stephen J Guastello1, Robert W Bond
1Department of Psychology, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881, USA. Stephen.Guastello@marquette.edu
Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences
|July 6, 2004
Summary
Coordinated emergency response is crucial, but sentient adversaries can exploit communication outages. While communication helps, it only equalizes chances, and coordination declines with uncertainty, impacting team performance.
Area of Science:
- Complex Systems Science
- Game Theory
- Human-Computer Interaction
Background:
- Effective emergency response relies on coordinated, self-organized teams.
- Traditional models often overlook adaptive, sentient adversaries.
- Understanding team dynamics under adversarial pressure is vital.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate emergency response coordination against a learning adversary.
- To model defense strategies as a stag hunt game and offense as a competitive game.
- To analyze the impact of communication and learning on team performance.
Main Methods:
- Utilized an iterative board game simulation (The Creature that Ate Sheboygan).
- Employed 28 university students as participants, playing in teams against a simulated adversary.
- Applied experimental manipulations, including communication outages, and nonlinear analysis.
Main Results:
- Communication outages significantly aided the adversary.
- Communication did not provide a definitive advantage but equalized human team chances.
- Human coordination fluctuated with adversary progress and declined asymptotically with uncertainty.
- Both human and adversary agents exhibited learning effects, interacting with communication conditions.
Conclusions:
- Adaptive adversaries pose unique challenges to emergency response coordination.
- Communication is essential but not sufficient for overcoming learning adversaries.
- Team coordination is dynamic and susceptible to uncertainty and adversary actions.