Swarm Intelligence

Axelrod’s Culture Model

Axelrod has theorized that similarity between pairs of individuals can re-

sult in the spread of culture. In his simulations, individuals are repre-

sented as strings of symbols called “features”; the number and length of

the strings and the universe of symbols available to them are parameters

of the system. For example, if individuals comprise five features, and

these are defined as numerals in {0,1...,9},then one individual may be

represented as 42237 and another as 99217. A two-dimensional matrix

of individuals is initialized into the simulation, and they are allowed to

interact.

Axelrod postulates that the probability of human ...