Model reproduces individual, group and collective dynamics of human contact networks

TL;DR

This paper presents a simple model that accurately reproduces the structural and temporal properties of human face-to-face contact networks across various social settings, highlighting universal mechanisms in human interactions.

Contribution

The model introduces a basic mechanism where agents move randomly and stop upon meeting attractive peers, capturing empirical contact network distributions.

Findings

Model accurately reproduces empirical distributions of contact dynamics.

Universal properties of human contact networks are explained by simple movement and attraction rules.

Model applies across different social venues, indicating common underlying mechanisms.

Abstract

Empirical data on the dynamics of human face-to-face interactions across a variety of social venues have recently revealed a number of context-independent structural and temporal properties of human contact networks. This universality suggests that some basic mechanisms may be responsible for the unfolding of human interactions in the physical space. Here we discuss a simple model that reproduces the empirical distributions for the individual, group and collective dynamics of face-to-face contact networks. The model describes agents that move randomly in a two-dimensional space and tend to stop when meeting "attractive" peers, and reproduces accurately the empirical distributions.