2010 Modeling Competition - FAQ
Q. Does the model's world space wrap around the edges?
A. No, the space does not wrap around. The probabilities of token regrowth are defined as
where N < 8 at the edges of the world space. For example, in a corner a cell has only 3 neighbors, and N=3 for those cases.
Q. Can more than one individual occupy a cell at the same time?
A. No, only one individual can occupy a cell at the same time.
Q. What does a radius of 6 mean in future experiments?
A. Participants in the experiment can only see the environment within a circle of radius 6. Outside this circle, the environment is hidden.
Comments
Adaptation
Despite the fact that participants will not be able to see the whole screen but can only observe their environment within a radius of 6 cells, can they still see the total number of harvested tokens of all the participants at the top of the screen ? Thanks
Answer
Participants can only see the total number of harvested tokens of a participants if that participant is within a radius of 6 cells. Hence, they may not see the info for all participants at the top of the screen.
experiment and harvest
1) about the experiments: does 5 people will perform 6 times the experiment (and so learn from previous experience) or does 6 groups of 5 people will perform 1 time the experiment ?
2) about harvesting: it is unclear to me if avatars can harvest one time per second (pressing the spacebar) or after each movement (and so harvest a maximum of 8 tokens per second).
Thanks.
Answers
1) 6 groups of 5 people perform the experiment once. 2) They can harvest a maximum of 8 tokens per second.
How often can avatars move in 1 second? and how far?
There is a reference in description to 'speed' which implies that avatars can move faster than one cell per second. Can this be clarified? It seems like in the Science paper SOM avatars can move up to 8 times in a second - this 'parameter' has a dramatic effect on how things turn out, and needs to be made very clear. Thanks
Avatars move one square per
Avatars move one square per keystroke. Depending on the human participant, the number of movement keystrokes they enter in one second will, of course, vary. The experimental software, however, places an upper limit of 8 keystrokes per second.
Actions per second
Hi,
I'm still a bit confused about the detail of this. It seems unlikely that a human could perform 8 discrete keystrokes in a second. However, can the human participants hold keys down and have them sampled 8 times per second? What I'm asking is: if the participant holds a given arrow key down could they move 8 squares in the same direction in a second?
Another, related but separate, question: Can the participant hold down the spacebar whilst holding other keys? Or put another way, could a participant hold down the spacebar and an arrow key and harvest everything in its path? So in theory, if all squares contain tokens, the participant could harvest 8 tokens per second. Or does the harvest action have to take place after all movement keys are released?
Best Regards,
Richard
Answer
If a key is hold down it will be registered as one key stroke and thus one move. This also holds for the spacebar. For each and every move participants need to press a key. Hence it is a rare event if 8 or more moves are made in a second.
How do avatars move?
It is not clear from the description in the instructions how avatars move.
Are their coordinates restricted to the centres of each grid cell? Can they only move grid-square to grid square? Can they move in any direction or only in the 4 orthogonal or 8 orthogonal + diagonal directions? What is their speed of movement? My impression from the Science paper diagrams is that movement is NSEW only one grid square in one second? Is this correct?
In the instructions a turn penalty is implied... what is the nature of this penalty? And does collecting a token take time?
Positioning on a cell does
Positioning on a cell does not really apply. For simplicity sake, you might consider avatars to be positioned at the center of a cell. However, movement only occurs in single cell units, from one cell to one of its orthogonal neighbors.
Movement is within the orthogonal von Neumann neighborhood (4 neighbors), while vision covers the full Moore neighborhood (8 neighbors). Movement is orthogonal because the participants are using the cursor keys on their keyboard to move their avatars.