The influence of asynchronous dynamics in the Spatial Prisoner's Dilemma game

Abstract

We examine the influence of asynchronism in the Spatial Prisoner's Dilemma game. Previous studies reported that less cooperation is achieved with the asynchronous version of the game than with the synchronous one. Here, we show that, in general, the opposite is the most common outcome. This conclusion is only possible because a larger number of scenarios was tested, namely, different interaction topologies, a transition rule that can be tuned to emulate different levels of determinism in the choice of the next strategy to be adopted and different rates of asynchronism. The influence of stochastic and deterministic periodic updating in the outcome of the system is also compared. We found that these two update disciplines lead basically to the same result. This is an important issue in the simulation of social and biological behavior. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.