Simplicial models of social contagion
Simplicial models of social contagion
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DOI：
10.1038/s41467-019-10431-6
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发表时间：
2019-06-06
影响因子：
16.6
通讯作者：
Latora, Vito
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Iacopini, Iacopo;Petri, Giovanni;Latora, Vito
复杂的网络已成功地用于描述疾病在相互作用的个体群体中的传播。相反，成对互动通常不足以表征社会传染过程，例如意见形成或新奇事物的采用，其中复杂的影响和强化机制正在发挥作用。在这里，我们引入了社会传染的高阶模型，其中社会系统由简单复合体表示，并且传染可以通过不同规模的群体中的相互作用发生。对经验和合成单纯复形模型的数值模拟突出了新现象的出现，例如由高阶相互作用引起的不连续转变。我们分析表明，这种转变是不连续的，并且在健康状态和地方性状态共存的地方出现双稳态区域。我们的结果有助于解释为什么需要临界群众来发起社会变革，并有助于理解复杂系统中的高阶相互作用。
Complex networks have been successfully used to describe the spread of diseases in populations of interacting individuals. Conversely, pairwise interactions are often not enough to characterize social contagion processes such as opinion formation or the adoption of novelties, where complex mechanisms of influence and reinforcement are at work. Here we introduce a higher-order model of social contagion in which a social system is represented by a simplicial complex and contagion can occur through interactions in groups of different sizes. Numerical simulations of the model on both empirical and synthetic simplicial complexes highlight the emergence of novel phenomena such as a discontinuous transition induced by higher-order interactions. We show analytically that the transition is discontinuous and that a bistable region appears where healthy and endemic states co-exist. Our results help explain why critical masses are required to initiate social changes and contribute to the understanding of higher-order interactions in complex systems.