Crowds and Spontaneous Collaboration

Study of Crowd dynamics has had significant overlaps with models of biological swarms. Understanding and directing human crowds have also been of long-standing interest. In this paper, we describe a few basic cognitive processes that account for life cycle of typical human crowds. Individuals change their behavior with stimulants that attract a crowd. A crowd remains in place and behaves as a collective unit as long as stimulants persist. Once original stimulants cease or others emerge, the crowd disperses and individuals return to their individualistic behaviors. Although crowd phenomenon is commonly observed in natural settings there are no previous explanations for it. Our model stride lays the groundwork for further modeling of common human crowds.