Colloquium: David Lazer

We invite you to a special end-of-the-semester Cognitive Science presentation.

Monday, May 4
4:00-5:00 p.m.
Dogwood Room of the Indiana University Memorial Union

Dr. David Lazer, Director of the Program on Networked Governance at Harvard University, and Associate Professor of Public Policy, will present, "How we think together: the role of social networks in collective problem solving."

Abstract:
How does the way that we are connected affect how we collectively solve problems? This presentation builds on work I have done on the network structure of exploration and exploitation. This work found that well connected systems perform well in the short run, but poorly in the long run at solving problems. Here I present two sequels: in the first I find that there may be evolutionary pressures on individuals to become better connected, creating a “tragedy of the network” where systems become progressively better connected, and thus with lower capacity to explore/innovate. In the second, I examine experimental data where small groups are given a version of the traveling salesman problem. The frequency of communication in these groups is manipulated, where the question that I examine is how communication bandwidth affects collective performance.