Instructions for Use

This simulation refers to the sections 4.11-4.20 in our article. In these experiments we mixed populations and we assume an in-group and an out-group. We have the following parameters:

Strategies and Options (left side)

Strategies: Choose one strategy from the options
"Blind Aggression" (agents attack other agents regardless of strength),
"Strategic" (agents attack only weaker agents) and
"Normative" (agents do not attack other agents with food "flagged" for them - finder/keeper norm).

Additionally you may switch on and off the options
"Birth/Death" (2 agents may produce offspring and beqeath their resources to the offspring),
"Matthew Effect" (leads to unequal renewal of resources), and
"Taxes" (the in-group members transfer resources to the distribution agent, which distributes it to all agents to institutionalize the norm)

Textfields (type in the values) (in the middle):

"Dimension x:" defines breadth of world
"Dimension y:" defines height of world
"Food Items:" number of food items
"Agents:" number of agents
"Number of games:" number of single steps in one simulation run
"Share of heritance (alpha)": the share one agent gets when agents produce offspring. The other child gets the rest of the summed strength of the parents
"In-Group members %:" probability of a given agent to belong to the in-group

Control Buttons (on the right):

"Simulation Run": continue the current simulation run till the set number of games is reached
"Single Step": perform one step in the simulation; each agent gets to make one action
"Experiment": produce 100 complete simulation runs
"Set values": new game world is created with the parameters set in the graphical interface
"Quit": current simulation window is closed
 

Procedure for simulating:

  1. Set options on the left and values in the middle part according to your wishes
  2. Press control button "Set values" on the right to create the defined simulation world
  3. Start the simulation with the control buttons on the right

Key to the simulation window:

In the simulation window agents are represented as squares containing two numbers. The upper number is the agent's current strength and the lower number (blue colour) is the agent's identifier. Agents belonging to the in-group have black border and upper number while agents belonging to the out-group have orange border and upper number. The food items are represented as filled squares in varying hues of green. The bigger the food amount the brighter the green

Have fun with the Simulation!


Andreas Harrer, 1999-01-15, 1999-01-22