Interaction between Evolution and Learning in a Population of Globally or Locally Interacting Agents
Reiji Suzuki and Takaya Arita
The Baldwin effect is known as one of the interactions between evolution and learning. In this paper we consider the Baldwin effect in dynamic environments, especially when there is no explicit optimal solution through generations and it depends only on the interaction among agents. We adopted the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma as a dynamic environment, introduced phenotypic plasticity into strategies, and conducted computational experiments on the models with/without spatial locality. In the non-spatial experiments, the Baldwin effect was observed as follows: First, strategies with enough plasticity spread, which caused a shift from defect-oriented population to cooperative population. Second, these strategies were replaced by a strategy with a modest amount of plasticity. Subsequently, we expanded this model in a two-dimensional space where each agent plays games only with its neighbors. Based on the results of these experiments, we discussed similarities and differences in evolutionary dynamics concerning the Baldwin effect in a population of globally interacting agents and the one of locally interacting agents.
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