Community-centric modeling of citation dynamics explains collective citation patterns in science, law, and patents

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Kojaku, Sadamori, Mahari, Robert, Lera, Sandro Claudio, Moro, Esteban, Pentland, Alex, Ahn, Yong-Yeol
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866917904029581312
author Kojaku, Sadamori
Mahari, Robert
Lera, Sandro Claudio
Moro, Esteban
Pentland, Alex
Ahn, Yong-Yeol
author_facet Kojaku, Sadamori
Mahari, Robert
Lera, Sandro Claudio
Moro, Esteban
Pentland, Alex
Ahn, Yong-Yeol
contents Many human knowledge systems, such as science, law, and invention, are built on documents and the citations that link them. Citations, while serving multiple purposes, primarily function as a way to explicitly document the use of prior work and thus have become central to the study of knowledge systems. Analyzing citation dynamics has revealed statistical patterns that shed light on knowledge production, recognition, and formalization, and has helped identify key mechanisms driving these patterns. However, most quantitative findings are confined to scientific citations, raising the question of universality of these findings. Moreover, existing models of individual citation trajectories fail to explain phenomena such as delayed recognition, calling for a unifying framework. Here, we analyze a newly available corpus of U.S. case law, in addition to scientific and patent citation networks, to show that they share remarkably similar citation patterns, including a heavy-tailed distribution of sleeping beauties. We propose a holistic model that captures the three core mechanisms driving collective dynamics and replicates the elusive phenomenon of delayed recognition. We demonstrate that the model not only replicates observed citation patterns, but also better predicts future successes by considering the whole system. Our work offers insights into key mechanisms that govern large-scale patterns of collective human knowledge systems and may provide generalizable perspectives on discovery and innovation across domains.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_15552
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Community-centric modeling of citation dynamics explains collective citation patterns in science, law, and patents
Kojaku, Sadamori
Mahari, Robert
Lera, Sandro Claudio
Moro, Esteban
Pentland, Alex
Ahn, Yong-Yeol
Physics and Society
Social and Information Networks
Many human knowledge systems, such as science, law, and invention, are built on documents and the citations that link them. Citations, while serving multiple purposes, primarily function as a way to explicitly document the use of prior work and thus have become central to the study of knowledge systems. Analyzing citation dynamics has revealed statistical patterns that shed light on knowledge production, recognition, and formalization, and has helped identify key mechanisms driving these patterns. However, most quantitative findings are confined to scientific citations, raising the question of universality of these findings. Moreover, existing models of individual citation trajectories fail to explain phenomena such as delayed recognition, calling for a unifying framework. Here, we analyze a newly available corpus of U.S. case law, in addition to scientific and patent citation networks, to show that they share remarkably similar citation patterns, including a heavy-tailed distribution of sleeping beauties. We propose a holistic model that captures the three core mechanisms driving collective dynamics and replicates the elusive phenomenon of delayed recognition. We demonstrate that the model not only replicates observed citation patterns, but also better predicts future successes by considering the whole system. Our work offers insights into key mechanisms that govern large-scale patterns of collective human knowledge systems and may provide generalizable perspectives on discovery and innovation across domains.
title Community-centric modeling of citation dynamics explains collective citation patterns in science, law, and patents
topic Physics and Society
Social and Information Networks
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.15552