Effect of visual and auditory sensing cues on collective behavior in Vicsek models

In the present study, we consider two independent sensing modes (auditory and visual) in Vicsek-like models and compare the emergent group-level behaviors in terms of polarization, cohesion, and cluster size. The auditory and visual modes differ in the determination of particle neighbors, which at the level of groups results in higher polarization, lower cohesion, and larger cluster size for the auditory mode relative to the visual. With the increase in average density of the particles, these differences are more pronounced. These differences are due to the fact that these sense modalities robustly generate distinct spatial distributions of the particles. We demonstrate the use of a data-driven approach, called transfer entropy, to distinguish the sensing modalities by considering only a pair of particle trajectories. Such an approach could be applicable to real-world systems, where it may be a challenge to measure the position and velocity of every particle within a swarm.