Topological Traps Control Flow on Real Networks: The Case of Coordination Failures Articles uri icon

publication date

  • December 2010

start page

  • 15210

issue

  • 12

volume

  • 5

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 1932-6203

abstract

  • We study evolutionary games in real social networks, with a focus on coordination games. We find that populations fail to coordinate in the same behavior for a wide range of parameters, a novel phenomenon not
    observed in most artificial model networks. We show that this result
    arises from the relevance of correlations beyond the first neighborhood,
    in particular from topological traps formed by links between nodes of
    different degrees in regions with few or no redundant paths. This
    specificity of real networks has not been modeled so far with synthetic
    networks. We thus conclude that model networks must be improved to
    include these mesoscopic structures, in order to successfully address
    issues such as the emergence of cooperation in real societies. We
    finally show that topological traps are a very generic phenomenon that
    may arise in very many different networks and fields, such as opinion
    models, spread of diseases or ecological networks.