Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 15: Poster Session

SOE 15.17: Poster

Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 16:50–17:50, Poster F

The role of noise and initial conditions in the asymptotic solution of the Deffuant et al. model — •Adrián Carro Patiño, Maxi San Miguel, and Raúl Toral — IFISC (CSIC - UIB), Palma de Mallorca, Spain

The Deffuant et al. model was introduced in 2000 to model the dynamics of continuous opinions under bounded confidence. In its original version, agents meet in random pairwise encounters and, if the difference between their continuous-value opinions is less than a certain confidence level, they interact, that is, they adjust their opinion towards the opinion of the other agent.

While most of the existing literature has focused on the important role played by the bound of confidence parameter, we have studied the strong importance of the initial distribution of opinions in determining the asymptotic configuration. Thus, we have sketched the structure of attractors of the dynamical system, by means of the numerical computation of the time evolution of the agents density. In particular, we have used a discrete density-based reformulation of the model as discussed by J. Lorenz.

Furthermore, the influence of noisy perturbations was studied. The role played by this noise is that of a free will, as individuals are given the opportunity to change their opinion, with a given probability, and return to a fundamental opinion taken from a given distribution. As a consequence, the importance of the initial condition is replaced by that of the basal distribution.