Publication: Imperfect imitation can enhance cooperation
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Identifiers
ISSN: 0295-5075 (Print)
ISSN: 1286-4854 (Online)
Publication date
2009-08
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Publisher
EDP Sciences
IOP Publishing
IOP Publishing
Abstract
The promotion of cooperation on spatial lattices is an important issue in evolutionary game theory. This effect clearly depends on the update rule: it diminishes with stochastic imitative rules whereas it increases with unconditional imitation. To study the transition between both regimes, we propose a new evolutionary rule, which stochastically combines unconditional imitation with another imitative rule. We find that, surprisingly, in many social dilemmas this rule yields higher cooperative levels than any of the two original ones. This nontrivial effect occurs because the basic rules induce a separation of timescales in the microscopic processes at cluster interfaces. The result is robust in the space of 2×2 symmetric games, on regular lattices and on scale-free networks.
Description
5 pages, 4 figures.-- PACS nrs.: 87.23.Kg, 02.50.Le, 89.65.-s.-- ArXiv pre-print available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.0869
Keywords
[PACS] Dynamics of evolution, [PACS] Decision theory and game theory, [PACS] Social and economic systems
Bibliographic citation
Europhysics Letters 87, 47005 (2009)