Effects of population size upon emergent group behavior Cristobal Baray,
Abstract
	Previous work defined a simple artificial world and evolved agents Êthat utilized several effective communication Êschemes that aided the agents with a foraging Êtask and predator avoidance Ê. The agents were able to extend their average life span by coordinating their actions via undirected communication. The model did not force the agents to communicate -- instead the model was designed to explore the types of communication schemes that could evolve and the situations that facilitated the evolution Êof communication. This work examines some of the assumptions within the previous work. Specifically, population size is altered to study the effectiveness of the communication scheme over varying conditions. This work shows that the population size can effect the group behavior and introduces a method for quantifying the emergent effects of individuals upon group behavior. The results show that the coordination techniques developed in the previous work are not always beneficial and that this cooperative model displays diminishing returns.

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