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How do collectives make decisions?

7. Subprogram (2019–2023)

Originally, the term collective refers to a social structure of living beings. However, the term is also used in the natural sciences to describe properties of matter not limited to living beings, e.g., living cells or quantum materials. A frequently encountered concept is that of swarm intelligence, which is used in a wide variety of disciplines. A cross-disciplinary question in this context is the emergence of decision-making processes within collectives. This is a topic that has historically been addressed in isolation within the natural sciences, medicine, the social sciences, and the humanities, and which is driving the development of current research approaches. A more detailed analysis, however, suggests the hypothesis that universally applicable rules of behavior can be identified across all these fields, which lead to the decisions made by the respective collective.

Within the framework of the 7th Subprogram, the interdisciplinary research groups are addressing various aspects of this topic.

Duration: 2019–2022

How does group composition influence collective perception and decision-making?

Decentralized systems consist of individual units that must coordinate their behavior in order to function as a whole. This can apply to many different biological levels of organization, from the cellular to the organismic, as well as to human societies and technological systems. Two common aspects of decentralized systems are that individuals differ in their behavior and that the group’s response depends on the efficient aggregation of many individual reactions, each of which is based solely on locally available information.

Epithelial cells and honeybee colonies are two biological systems that utilize decentralized collective sensory algorithms. In this project, these two experimental model systems are used to compare collective perception and group behavior mechanisms, focusing on the following three main questions:

  1. To what extent do individuals within the group differ from one another?
  2. What factors drive task/type differentiation?
  3. How does group composition affect function and response to external disturbances?

Publications resulting from the project
  • M. Vishwakarma and J. Di Russo (2019): Why Do Epithelia Display Heterogeneity? Bridging Physical and Biological Concepts. Biophysical Reviews 11(5): 683–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12551-019-00583-6
  • M.L. Smith, J.D. Davidson, B. Wild, D. Dormagen, T. Landgraf & I.D. Couzin (2019): Lifetime Tracking of Bees Reveals Individual-Level Variability in Nest Use with Age. Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Swarm Behavior and Bio-Inspired Robotics (Swarm 2019).
  • M. Vishwakarma, B. Thurakkal, J.P. Spatz & T. Das. (2020): Dynamic Heterogeneity Influences the Leader-Follower Dynamics during Epithelial Wound Closure. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 375 (1807): 20190391. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0391
  • M. Vishwakarma, J. P. Spatz & T. Das (2020): Mechanobiology of Leader-Follower Dynamics in Epithelial Cell Migration. Current Opinion in Cell Biology, Cell Dynamics, 66 (October): 97−103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceb.2020.05.007
  • J.D. Davidson, M. Vishwakarma & M.L. Smith (2021): Hierarchical Approach for Comparing Collective Behavior across Scales: Cellular Systems to Honey Bee Colonies. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.581222

Further reading
  • M. Vishwakarma, J. Di Russo, D. Probst, U.S. Schwarz, T. Das, & J.P. Spatz (2018): Mechanical Interactions among Followers Determine the Emergence of Leaders in Migrating Epithelial Cell Collectives. Nature Communications 9(1): 3469. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05927-6
  • J.D. Davidson & D.M. Gordon (2017): Spatial Organization and Interactions of Harvester Ants during Foraging Activity. Journal of The Royal Society Interface 14(135): 20170413. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2017.0413
  • M.L. Smith, P.A. Koenig & J.M. Peters (2017): The Cues of Colony Size: How Honey Bees Sense That Their Colony Is Large Enough to Begin to Invest in Reproduction. Journal of Experimental Biology 220(9), 1597–1605. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.150342
  • J.D. Davidson, R.P. Arauco-Aliaga, S. Crow, D.M. Gordon & M.S. Goldman (2016): Effect of Interactions between Harvester Ants on Forager Decisions. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 4(115). https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2016.00115
  • M.L. Smith, M.M. Ostwald & T.D. Seeley (2016): Honey Bee Sociometry: Tracking Honey Bee Colonies and Their Nest Contents from Colony Founding until Death. Insectes Sociaux 63(4): 553–63. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-016-0499-6

Fellow

Project Staff
  • Benjamin Koger

Duration: 2019–2022

Heterogeneity and Convergence in Shared Data Sources. The Importance of Cognitive Coherence in Collective Decision Making

In the age of the Internet, more and more people are participating in collective projects such as Wikipedia for encyclopedic knowledge or OpenStreetMap for geographic information (e.g., roads or buildings, but also mountains or forests). Such shared data sources are characterized by the fact that every user can contribute and modify information. Although participants differ greatly in terms of their geographic and situational contexts, a consensus regarding the shared information is surprisingly often observed at the collective group level.

The WIN project “Shared Data Sources” investigates how individual cognitive processes contribute to this convergence at the collective level, using OpenStreetMap as a concrete example.

Publications resulting from the project
  • F.B. Mocnik & L. Kühl (2022): (Un)Represented Places – A Case Study of Two Sports Venues in Gelsenkirchen and Dortmund. Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Spatial Information Science (PLATIAL'21), 2022, 25–30. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5767180
  • M. Mayer, D.W. Heck & F.B. Mocnik (2022): Using OpenStreetMap as a Data Source in Psychology and the Social Sciences. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/h3npa
  • M. Mayer & D.W. Heck (2021). Sequential Collaboration: Comparing the Accuracy of Dependent, Incremental Judgments to Wisdom of Crowds. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/w4xdk
  • M. Mayer & D.W. Heck (2021): Sequential Collaboration: A More Accurate Alternative to Wisdom of Crowds. Proceedings of the 63rd Conference of Experimental Psychologists.
  • F.B. Mocnik (2021): Benford’s Law and Geographical Information – The Example of OpenStreetMap. International Journal of Geographical Information Science 35 (9), 1746–1772. https://doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2020.1829627
  • F.B. Mocnik & R. Westerholt (2021): The Effect of Tectonic Plate Motion on Georeferenced Long-Term Global Datasets. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 94, 102183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2020.102183
  • D.W. Heck, L. Seiling, & A. Bröder (2020): The love of large numbers revisited: A coherence model of the popularity bias. Cognition, 195, 104069. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104069
  • F.B. Mocnik (2020): Tracing Mental Models in Cartographic Datasets – The Case of OpenStreetMap. Proceedings of the Central European Cartographic Conference (EuroCarto). https://doi.org/10.5194/ica-abs-2-5-2020
  • M. Mayer, D.W. Heck & F.B. Mocnik (2019): Shared Mental Models as a Psychological Explanation for Converging Mental Representations of Place – the Example of OpenStreetMap. Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Platial Information Science (PLATIAL'19), 43–50. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3628871

Faculty Members

Project Staff
  • Laura Kühl
  • Maren Mayer
  • Karina Rettig

Duration: 2019–2023

Narrated Holiness Between Individual Decision and Collective Recognition

Holiness is generally understood as a distinction beyond human reach, one that can be defined as timeless and universally valid. However, what is considered holy is the result of a social process. It can be understood as a collective decision, which in turn is underpinned by individual and institutional decisions against the backdrop of a theonomic worldview. Such decisions regarding holiness have political, economic, and social relevance that should not be underestimated.

This project explores this tension through hagiographic texts from the Middle Ages and the modern era. Through interdisciplinary collaboration between church history, medieval German studies, and modern German literature, we aim to examine literary conceptions of holiness across historical periods and disciplinary boundaries, focusing on their various functions, their respective historical contexts, and their dependence on collective decision-making processes.

Research Fellows

Associate Faculty Members

Duration: 2019–2023

Fake News and Collective Decision Making. Rapid Automated Assessment of Media Bias

The way the media reports on public debates has a significant influence on collective decision-making processes. Biased reporting can shape the perception of news through specific word choices. Furthermore, reporting can also influence readers’ perceptions through the intentional omission or misrepresentation of certain details. In extreme cases, so-called “fake news” presents entirely false information in order to influence public opinion. 

This project combines a rich tradition of social science research on “media bias” with contemporary techniques from computer science. The first part of the project focuses on the technical implementation of automated, rapid detection of bias using computer science methods. In the second, social science-based part, we are conducting a systematic investigation into how biased representation in the media could best be communicated to promote consensus-building and collective decision-making.

Publications resulting from the project
  • F Hamborg, A Zhukova, and B Gipp (2019): Illegal Aliens or Undocumented Immigrants? Towards the Automated Identification of Bias by Word Choice and Labeling. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information (iConference 2019), 179–187. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15742-5_17
  • F Hamborg, A Zhukova, and B Gipp (2019): Automated Identification of Media Bias by Word Choice and Labeling in News Articles. Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL 2019). https://doi.org/10.1109/JCDL.2019.00036
  • F Hamborg, C Breitinger, and B Gipp (2019): Giveme5W1H: A Universal System for Extracting Main Events from News Articles. Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on News Recommendation and Analytics (INRA 2019).
  • F. Hamborg, A. Zhukova, K. Donnay, and B. Gipp (2020): Newsalyze: Enabling News Consumers to Understand Media Bias. Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL). https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3383583.3398561
  • T. Spinde, F. Hamborg, A. Becerra, K. Donnay & B. Gipp (2020): Enabling News Consumers to View and Understand Biased News Coverage: A Study on the Perception and Visualization of Media Bias. Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL). https://doi.org/10.1145/3383583.3398619
  • F. Hamborg (2020): Media Bias, the Social Sciences, and NLP: Automating Frame Analyses to Identify Bias by Word Choice and Labeling. Proceedings of the 58th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL): Student Research Workshop (ACL-SRW). http://dx.doi.org/10.18653/v1/2020.acl-srw.12
  • F. Hamborg, T. Spinde, K. Heinser, K. Donnay, and B. Gipp (2021):  How to Effectively Identify and Communicate Person-Targeting Media Bias in Daily News Consumption? Proceedings of the 15th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, 9th International Workshop on News Recommendation and Analytics (INRA 2021). https://www.gipp.com/wp-content/papercite-data/pdf/hamborg2021b.pdf
  • F. Hamborg, K. Heinser, A. Zhukova, K. Donnay, and B. Gipp (2021): Newsalyze: Effective Communication of Person-Targeting Biases in News Articles. Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL). https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.09158
  • F. Hamborg and K. Donnay (2021): NewsMTSC: A Dataset for (Multi-)Target-Dependent Sentiment Classification in Political News Articles. Proceedings of the 16th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (EACL). https://aclanthology.org/2021.eacl-main.142.pdf

References
  • F. Hamborg, K. Donnay, and B. Gipp (2019): Automated Identification of Media Bias in News Articles: An Interdisciplinary Literature Review. International Journal on Digital Libraries (IJDL). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-018-0261-y
  • F Hamborg, N Meuschke, and B Gipp (2018): Bias-Aware News Analysis Using Matrix-Based News Aggregation. International Journal on Digital Libraries (IJDL). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-018-0239-9
  • F Hamborg, S Lachnit, M Schubotz, T Hepp, and B Gipp (2018): Giveme5W: Main Event Retrieval from News Articles by Extraction of the Five Journalistic W Questions. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Information (iConference 2018), 356–366. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78105-1_39
  • F. Hamborg, N. Meuschke, C. Breitinger, and B. Gipp (2017): news-please: A Generic News Crawler and Extractor. Proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Information Science (ISI 2017), 218–223.

Fellow

Associate WIN Faculty Members

Opinion Formation: Duration 2022–2023
Modeling: Duration 2019–2021

A Transdisciplinary Model for Collective Decision-Making: Opinion Formation from Linguistic and Physical Perspectives

This interdisciplinary project examines opinion formation processes through the lens of various disciplines, incorporating discipline-specific methods and concepts. Basic research in the individual disciplines, which will subsequently be integrated, can yield new perspectives on opinion formation and collective decision-making processes.

In the proposed two-year project extension, the transdisciplinary model was applied, refined, and modified with a specific focus, building on the results of the initial development phase. To ensure this, the project is limited to collaboration between linguistics and physics, while the biological concepts from the first three years of the project are utilized on an ongoing basis.

Publications resulting from the project
  • Jacob, Katharina/Landschoff, Jöran/Littek, Carsten/Wolf, Eva: Collective Decision Making. A Transdisciplinary Exchange between Linguistics, Biology, and Physics. Heidelberg University Publishing (submitted: Book Chapter I “Individuals – Collectives – State Spaces”; in preparation: Book Chapter II “Stability – Dynamics – Decision-Making”).
  • Jacob, Katharina/Kowalewski, Louisa (submitted): Decision-Making as a Communicative Practice. A Methodological and Intra-linguistic Discussion Using the Example of the Stuttgart 21 Mediation Talks.
  • Jacob, Katharina (accepted, expected to be published in 2022): Practicing – Naming – Narrating. Linguistic Perspectives on the Semantics and Narratives of Decision-Making. In: Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics (LiLi).
  • Jacob, Katharina/Landschoff, Jöran (2022): Centrifugal and Centripetal Speech Dynamics in Political Discourses: The Case of the COVID-19 Pandemic Discourse. In: Proceedings of the XIV International Congress of German Studies, Palermo 2021—Pathways in German Studies from Transcultural Perspectives. Frankfurt am Main, et al.: Peter Lang (Publications of the International Association for German Studies (IVG)), pp. 555–563.
  • Jacob, Katharina/Landschoff, Jöran (2022): Stability and Dynamism in Semantics and Grammar: The Case of Discourse on the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Dialogue Following a Digital Semester of Research-Oriented Teaching. In: Aptum 1/2022, pp. 83–105.
  • Jacob, Katharina (2019): Communicative Practices in Parliamentary Decision-Making. Mechanisms for Controlling Energy Policy Following a Technological Escalation. In: Große, Sybille/Schlaak, Claudia/Weiland, Verena (eds.): Control and Verbal Escalations / Control y escaladas de tensión políticas. Politics and Regulation through Language / Política y control a través de la lengua. Heidelberg: Winter (Studia Romanica 216), pp. 57–73.
  • Jacob, Katharina (2017): The Linguistics of Decision-Making. A Communicative Practice from a Functional-Pragmatic and Discourse-Linguistic Perspective. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter (Sprache und Wissen 27).

Faculty Members

Project Staff
  • Jöran Landschoff (Research Assistant and Ph.D. candidate in the Linguistics subproject)