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How intermittent breaks in interaction improve collective intelligence.

ABSTRACT: People influence each other when they interact to solve problems. Such social influence introduces both benefits (higher average solution quality due to exploitation of existing answers through social learning) and costs (lower maximum solution quality due to a reduction in individual exploration for novel answers) relative to independent problem solving. In contrast to prior work, which has focused on how the presence and network structure of social influence affect performance, here we investigate the effects of time. We show that when social influence is intermittent it provides the benefits of constant social influence without the costs. Human subjects solved the canonical traveling salesperson problem in groups of three, randomized into treatments with constant social influence, intermittent social influence, or no social influence. Groups in the intermittent social-influence treatment found the optimum solution frequently (like groups without influence) but had a high mean performance (like groups with constant influence); they learned from each other, while maintaining a high level of exploration. Solutions improved most on rounds with social influence after a period of separation. We also show that storing subjects' best solutions so that they could be reloaded and possibly modified in subsequent rounds-a ubiquitous feature of personal productivity software-is similar to constant social influence: It increases mean performance but decreases exploration.

SUBMITTER: Bernstein E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6126746 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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How intermittent breaks in interaction improve collective intelligence.

Bernstein Ethan E Shore Jesse J Lazer David D

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20180813 35

People influence each other when they interact to solve problems. Such social influence introduces both benefits (higher average solution quality due to exploitation of existing answers through social learning) and costs (lower maximum solution quality due to a reduction in individual exploration for novel answers) relative to independent problem solving. In contrast to prior work, which has focused on how the presence and network structure of social influence affect performance, here we investi ...[more]

PMID: 30104371

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Innovative ways of planning and conducting research have emerged recently, based on the concept of collective intelligence. Collective intelligence is defined as shared intelligence emerging when people are mobilized within or outside an organization to work on a specific task that could result in more innovative outcomes than those when individuals work alone. Crowdsourcing is defined as "the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call." OBJECTIVE:This qualitative study aimed to identify the barriers to mobilizing collective intelligence and ways to overcome these barriers and provide good practice advice for planning and conducting collective intelligence projects across different research disciplines. METHODS:We conducted a multinational online open-ended question survey and semistructured audio-recorded interviews with a purposive sample of researchers who had experience in running collective intelligence projects. The questionnaires had an interactive component, enabling respondents to rate and comment on the advice of their fellow respondents. Data were analyzed thematically, drawing on the framework method. RESULTS:A total of 82 respondents from various research fields participated in the survey (n=65) or interview (n=17). The main barriers identified were the lack of evidence-based guidelines for implementing collective intelligence, complexity in recruiting and engaging the community, and difficulties in disseminating the results of collective intelligence projects. We drew on respondents' experience to provide tips and good practice advice for governance, planning, and conducting collective intelligence projects. Respondents particularly suggested establishing a diverse coordination team to plan and manage collective intelligence projects and setting up common rules of governance for participants in projects. In project planning, respondents provided advice on identifying research problems that could be answered by collective intelligence and identifying communities of participants. They shared tips on preparing the task and interface and organizing communication activities to recruit and engage participants. CONCLUSIONS:Mobilizing collective intelligence through crowdsourcing is an innovative method to increase research efficiency, although there are several barriers to its implementation. We present good practice advice from researchers with experience of collective intelligence across different disciplines to overcome barriers to mobilizing collective intelligence.

Dataset Information

How intermittent breaks in interaction improve collective intelligence.

Publications

How intermittent breaks in interaction improve collective intelligence.

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