Analysis of beliefs of survivors of the 7/7 London bombings: Application of a formal model for contagion of mental states

Abstract

During emergency scenarios, the large number of possible influences inter se between cognitive and affective states of the individuals involved makes it difficult to analyse their (collective) behaviour. To study the behaviour of collectives of individuals during emergencies, this paper proposes a methodology based on formalisation of empirical transcripts and agent-based simulation, and applies this to a case study in the domain of the 7/7 London bombings in 2005. For this domain, first a number of survivor statements have been formalised. Next, an existing agent-based model has been applied to simulate the scenarios described in the statements. Via a formal comparison, the model was found capable of closely reproducing the real world scenarios. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.