Social contact patterns can buffer costs of forgetting in the evolution of cooperation.

ABSTRACT: Analyses of the evolution of cooperation often rely on two simplifying assumptions: (i) individuals interact equally frequently with all social network members and (ii) they accurately remember each partner's past cooperation or defection. Here, we examine how more realistic, skewed patterns of contact-in which individuals interact primarily with only a subset of their network's members-influence cooperation. In addition, we test whether skewed contact patterns can counteract the decrease in cooperation caused by memory errors (i.e. forgetting). Finally, we compare two types of memory error that vary in whether forgotten interactions are replaced with random actions or with actions from previous encounters. We use evolutionary simulations of repeated prisoner's dilemma games that vary agen

SUBMITTER: Stevens JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6015862 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature