Collective information processing in human phase separation

• Published in: IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc Vol. 375; no. 1807; p. 20190801
• Main Authors: Jayles, Bertrand, Escobedo, Ramón, Pasqua, Roberto, Zanon, Christophe, Blanchet, Adrien, Roy, Matthieu, Tredan, Gilles, Theraulaz, Guy, Sire, Clément
• Format: Journal Article Paper
• Language: English
• Published: England Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 14.09.2020; Royal Society, The; The Royal Society
• Subjects: Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems; Computational Complexity; Computer Science; Economics and Finance; Group Processes; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Modeling and Simulation; Models, Psychological; Multiagent Systems; Networking and Internet Architecture; Nonlinear Sciences; Pedestrians - psychology; Physics; Physics and Society; computational modelling; collective information processing; phase separation; collective motion; collective human behaviour; Collective human behaviour; Collective information processing; Phase separation; Computational modelling; Collective motion
• ISSN: 0962-8436; 1471-2970; 1471-2970
• DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0801

In our digital societies, individuals massively interact through digital interfaces whose impact on collective dynamics can be important. In particular, the combination of social media filters and recommender systems can lead to the emergence of polarized and fragmented groups. In some social contexts, such segregation processes of human groups have been shown to share similarities with phase separation phenomena in physics. Here, we study the impact of information filtering on collective segregation behaviour of human groups. We report a series of experiments where groups of 22 subjects have to perform a collective segregation task that mimics the tendency of individuals to bond with other similar individuals. More precisely, the participants are each assigned a colour (red or blue) unknown to them, and have to regroup with other subjects sharing the same colour. To assist them, they are equipped with an artificial sensory device capable of detecting the majority colour in their ‘environment’ (defined as their k nearest neighbours, unbeknownst to them), for which we control the perception range, k = 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13. We study the separation dynamics (emergence of unicolour groups) and the properties of the final state, and show that the value of k controls the quality of the segregation, although the subjects are totally unaware of the precise definition of the ‘environment’. We also find that there is a perception range k = 7 above which the ability of the group to segregate does not improve. We introduce a model that precisely describes the random motion of a group of pedestrians in a confined space, and which faithfully reproduces and allows interpretation of the results of the segregation experiments. Finally, we discuss the strong and precise analogy between our experiment and the phase separation of two immiscible materials at very low temperature. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Multi-scale analysis and modelling of collective migration in biological systems’.