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Updated: Oct 22, 2025
12:55
Multimodal Protocol for Assessing Metacognition and Self-Regulation in Adults with Learning Difficulties
Published on: September 27, 2020
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Dynamical system model predicts when social learners impair collective performance
Vicky Chuqiao Yang1, Mirta Galesic2,3,4, Harvey McGuinness5
1Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501; vcy@santafe.edu.
Summary
Collective decisions can fail when many individuals learn from others. A critical threshold of social learners determines if the best option is chosen, otherwise, outcomes depend on chance.
Area of Science:
- Social cognition
- Collective decision-making
- Mathematical modeling
Background:
- Understanding collective decision-making is complex due to interactions between cognitive strategies, task properties, and social influence.
- Previous research on social learning's impact on collective outcomes yielded mixed conclusions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how the proportion of social learners, option merit, and conformity influence collective decisions in a binary choice scenario.
- To develop a mathematical framework integrating these factors for a more comprehensive understanding.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a dynamical system model to create a general, partially analytically tractable mathematical framework.
- Analyzed the interplay of social learners, option relative merit, and conformity response type.
Main Results:
- A critical threshold for the proportion of social learners was identified.
- Above this threshold, a bistable state emerges, where collective outcomes (favoring higher or lower merit option) depend on initial conditions and fluctuations.
- Below the threshold, the higher-merit option is consistently chosen.
Conclusions:
- The study reconciles conflicting findings on the role of social learners in collective performance.
- The proposed mathematical framework offers a foundation for further research into diverse collective dynamics.
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