Speaker
Description
Observing the decisions and actions of others within a group (such as running from a predator) provides social information that can inform actions such as whether to follow. We consider a model where all agents simultaneously gather stochastic private information (weighted towards an unknown preference), coming to a decision once sufficiently confident. These observing agents infer the state of the private information from these decisions and use this as social information that they incorporate with their private information; they will follow the observed decision if they are sufficiently confident with this new social information. Unlike previous models, we assume that agents can only observe the decisions of some (but not all) other agents at any one time. Consequently, first decisions are unseen by many, meaning decisions instead spread through a `network of observation' and that the first decision seen by an agent could be the result of social information acquired by earlier hidden decisions. We will explore how the properties of the network of observation affect how social information and decisions spread, as well as how this affects decision accuracy and consensus within the group.
