Theory of enhanced performance emerging in a sparsely-connected competitive population

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical theory explaining why maximum performance occurs in sparsely-connected competitive populations, attributing it to correlated strategy dynamics and suggesting simple modifications to enhance this effect.

Contribution

It provides the first analytical explanation for the performance peak in sparse populations and introduces a simple model modification to amplify this phenomenon.

Findings

Maximum performance is linked to strategy correlation dynamics.

Sparse connectivity enhances overall system performance.

Simple model modifications can significantly improve performance.

Abstract

We provide an analytic theory to explain Anghel et al.'s recent numerical finding whereby a maximum in the global performance emerges for a sparsely-connected competitive population [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 058701 (2004)]. We show that the effect originates in the highly-correlated dynamics of strategy choice, and can be significantly enhanced using a simple modification to the model.