Research Shows How Computation Can Predict Group Conflict When
conflict breaks out in social groups, individuals make strategic
decisions about how to behave based on their understanding of
alliances and feuds in the group. But it's been challenging to
quantify the underlying trends that dictate how individuals make
predictions, given they may only have seen a small number of
fights or have limited memory. In a new study, scientists at the
Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison develop a computational approach to determine
whether individuals behave predictably. With data from previous
fights, the team looked at how much memory individuals in the
group would need to make predictions themselves. The analysis
proposes a novel estimate of "cognitive burden," or the minimal
amount of information an organism needs to remember to make a
prediction. Image credit: Thinkstock