Center for Political Studies
Institute for Social Research
University of Michigan
P.O. Box 1248
Ann Arbor, MI
48106-1248

Voice: (734) 763-1348
Fax: (734) 764-3341

Title
Computational Models for Belief Revision, Group Decisions, and Cultural Shifts

PI
Scott Page (Center for Political Studies, University of Michigan)

Co-PI
Jennifer (Jenna) Bednar (Center for Political Studies, University of Michigan)

Direct Source
United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Abstract
The purpose of this project is to formulate at least one integrated, computational model for the dynamics of social networks, beliefs and attitudes, with special attention to the interactions among and between individuals, groups, and the institutional factors.

This collaborative project will result in an analysis of what would be required to scale programs and data sets to a size useful to practicing intelligence analysts, to provide models that link institutional to cognitive structure, to explore cognitive path dependencies and to demonstrate how assemblages of institutions can influence cooperative behavior, expectations and trusts.

In a second collaborative effort it will explore types of networks used in information aggregation and social communication, with relevance to the Medin/Atran field studies results and demonstrate how information uncertainty or miss-information might fracture a network; explore the role of institutional constraints on insuring the stability of a network subject to uncertainty; and, identify fragility of types of network, such as random, scale-free, small-world, etc.