Modelling influence and opinion evolution in online collective behaviour

Samuel Martin

Vendredi 18 mars 2016 à 11h, salle 26-00/332

Slides

Opinion evolution and judgment revision are mediated through social influence. In this talk, I will present a study based on a crowdsourced in vitro experiment. The study shows how a consensus model can be used to predict opinion evolution in online collective behaviour. The model is parametrized by the influenceability of each individuals, a factor representing to what extent individuals incorporate external judgments. Judgment revision includes unpredictable variations which limit the potential for prediction. The study also serves to measure this level of unpredictability via a specific control experiment. More than two thirds of the prediction errors are found to occur due to unpredictability of the human judgment revision process rather than to model imperfection.