Flocking in complex environments—Attention trade-offs in collective information processing
Fig 2
Emergent interaction networks.
a,b: Examples of social interaction networks for k = 3 (a) and k = 12 (b) at ρDS = 0.25. The black symbols indicate socially interacting agents, whereas the red symbols indicate agents responding to a DS. The lines indicate the (non-directed) interaction network. Filled circles represent uninformed agents, empty circles indicate agents informed about the preferred direction of migration. The DS positions shown by blue dots, are surrounded by a disc-like repulsion zones (light blue). For clarity, only a portion of the respective simulation box is represented here, see S1 Fig. for the full snapshots. c,d: In-out degree distributions for the emergent social interaction networks for low attention limit k = 3 (c) and high attention limit k = 12 (d) at low and high DS densities (ρDS = 0.05, and ρDS = 0.25). The vertical dashed lines are for visual guidance to distinguish the subpopulations with Dout = 0 corresponding to agents responding to DSs (left of the vertical line). At high density of DSs this distribution is clearly bimodal with two peaks at Dout = 0 and Dout = k. By increasing DS density number of agents with Dout = 0 increases. These agents have a lower in-degree compared to non-responders, which contributes to the self-isolation of the collective from environmental cues at low k values. For all panels: Rinf = 0.1.