Communication and coordination

Abstract

Remarkable levels of coordination are observed among social agents; yet the exact mechanisms by which such agents coordinate are not well understood. Here we examine the role of communication in achieving coordination-in particular, does endowing agents with the ability to communicate lead to more favorable outcomes? To pursue this question we employ an adaptive model of strategically communicating agents (Miller et al. [7]) playing the Stag Hunt game.We find that communication plays a key role in the ability of agents to reach and maintain superior coordination. In the absence of communication, agents tend to get trapped at the inferior coordination point. However, once agents reach a particular strategic threshold, sending even a priori meaningless messages serves to increase the likelihood that the population will coordinate on the superior outcome. While the system spends the majority of its time with well-coordinated behavior, it is not static-such periods are often punctuated by brief transitions in which the system switches to the alternative coordination point. We analyze the various mechanisms that account for this dynamic behavior and find that there are a few critical pathways by which the system transitions from one coordination point to another. Communication plays a critical, yet short-lived, role in one key pathway.Our analysis suggests that giving agents the ability to communicate even a priori meaningless messages may promote the emergence of a rich, and often robust, "ecology" of behaviors that allows agents to achieve new, and in this case superior, outcomes.

Resilience, Entropy, and Efficiency in Crisis Management: The January 12, 2010, Haiti Earthquake

“…The performance of the system is influenced by the number of different types of organizations engaged in meeting the demands placed upon the system, the degree of shared knowledge among them, and the heterogeneity of training, experience, and access to resources among them. The degree of diversity among actors in the system increases the complexity of operations (Page 2010) and, consequently, the number and type of communications needed to inform the participating actors to achieve a coherent program of action (Miller and Moser 2004). We propose that an increased number of types of organizations, or heterogeneity, operating within the system decreases efficiency in performance (Comfort, Boin and Demchak 2010), unless modulated by improved communication flow (Comfort, Oh and Ertan 2009).…”

Inter-organisational coordination of H1N1 outbreak: data collection, and analyses of a pilot field study

“…Being a major facet of coordination, communication has been further studied by Feczak and Hossain [15] within the context of temporal team dynamics for bug fixing behaviour during open source software lifecycle management. A study by Miller & Moser suggests that 'Communication can play a key role in the ability of agents to reach, and maintain, superior coordination' [16]. The two concepts are linked together because communication can be regarded as a necessary precedent to coordination.…”

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“…A study by Miller and Moser [12] suggests that "Communication can play a key role in the ability of agents to reach, and maintain, superior coordination". The two concepts are linked because communication can be regarded as a necessary and sufficient precedent associated with coordination.…”