Leadership Detection via Time-Lagged Correlation-Based Network Inference

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: da Silva, Thayanne França, Maia, José Everardo Bessa
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author da Silva, Thayanne França
Maia, José Everardo Bessa
author_facet da Silva, Thayanne França
Maia, José Everardo Bessa
contents Understanding leadership dynamics in collective behavior is a key challenge in animal ecology, swarm robotics, and intelligent transportation. Traditional information-theoretic approaches, including Transfer Entropy (TE) and Time-Lagged Mutual Information (TLMI), have been widely used to infer leader-follower relationships but face critical limitations in noisy or short-duration datasets due to their reliance on robust probability estimations. This study proposes a method based on dynamic network inference using time-lagged correlations across multiple kinematic variables: velocity, acceleration, and direction. Our approach constructs directed influence graphs over time, enabling the identification of leadership patterns without the need for large volumes of data or parameter-sensitive discretization. We validate our method through two multi-agent simulations in NetLogo: a modified Vicsek model with informed leaders and a predator-prey model featuring coordinated and independent wolf groups. Experimental results demonstrate that the network-based method outperforms TE and TLMI in scenarios with limited spatiotemporal observations, ranking true leaders at the top of influence metrics more consistently than TE and TLMI.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_04917
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Leadership Detection via Time-Lagged Correlation-Based Network Inference
da Silva, Thayanne França
Maia, José Everardo Bessa
Multiagent Systems
Artificial Intelligence
Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems
Understanding leadership dynamics in collective behavior is a key challenge in animal ecology, swarm robotics, and intelligent transportation. Traditional information-theoretic approaches, including Transfer Entropy (TE) and Time-Lagged Mutual Information (TLMI), have been widely used to infer leader-follower relationships but face critical limitations in noisy or short-duration datasets due to their reliance on robust probability estimations. This study proposes a method based on dynamic network inference using time-lagged correlations across multiple kinematic variables: velocity, acceleration, and direction. Our approach constructs directed influence graphs over time, enabling the identification of leadership patterns without the need for large volumes of data or parameter-sensitive discretization. We validate our method through two multi-agent simulations in NetLogo: a modified Vicsek model with informed leaders and a predator-prey model featuring coordinated and independent wolf groups. Experimental results demonstrate that the network-based method outperforms TE and TLMI in scenarios with limited spatiotemporal observations, ranking true leaders at the top of influence metrics more consistently than TE and TLMI.
title Leadership Detection via Time-Lagged Correlation-Based Network Inference
topic Multiagent Systems
Artificial Intelligence
Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.04917