Sven Banisch

• Dr.
• Senior Researcher at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

To comprehend the dynamics of infectious disease transmission, it is imperative to incorporate human protective behavior into models of disease spreading. While models exist for both infectious disease and behavior dynamics independently, the integration of these aspects has yet to yield a cohesive body of literature. Such an integration is crucial...

Understanding how individuals' beliefs and attitudes evolve within a population is crucial for explaining social phenomena such as polarization and consensus formation. We explore a persuasive arguments model incorporating confirmation bias, where individuals preferentially accept information aligning with their existing beliefs. By employing a mea...

In order to truly understand how social media might shape online discourses or contribute to societal polarization, we need refined models of platform choice, that is: models that help us understand why users prefer one social media platform over another. This study develops a dynamic model of platform selection, extending Social Feedback Theory by...

Capturing the complexity of interpersonal dynamics—emerging from approach and avoidance motives of two individuals in dyadic interplay—remains challenging. In line with calls for embracing complexity in psychological research using formal modeling, we employed evolutionary game theory to investigate the underlying mechanisms of affiliative interper...

We combine empirical experimental research on biased argument processing with a computational theory of group deliberation to overcome the micro–macro problem of sociology and to clarify the role of biased processing in debates around energy. We integrate biased processing into the framework of argument communication theory in which agents exchange...

Force-directed layout algorithms are ubiquitously used tools for network visualization. However, existing algorithms either lack clear interpretation, or they are based on techniques of dimensionality reduction which simply seek to preserve network-immanent topological features, such as geodesic distance. We propose an alternative layout algorithm....

Worry over polarization has grown alongside the digital information consumption revolution. Where most scientific work considered user-generated and user-disseminated (i.e.,~Web 2.0) content as the culprit, the potential of purely increased access to information (or Web 1.0) has been largely overlooked. Here, we suggest that the shift to Web 1.0 al...

The zero-temperature Ising model is known to reach a fully ordered ground state in sufficiently dense random graphs. In sparse random graphs, the dynamics gets absorbed in disordered local minima at magnetization close to zero. Here, we find that the nonequilibrium transition between the ordered and the disordered regime occurs at an average degree...

The empirical validation of models remains one of the most important challenges in opinion dynamics. In this contribution, we report on recent developments on combining data from survey experiments with computational models of opinion formation. We extend previous work on the empirical validation of an argument-based model for opinion dynamics in w...

What are the mechanisms by which groups with certain opinions gain public voice and force others holding a different view into silence? Furthermore, how does social media play into this? Drawing on neuroscientific insights into the processing of social feedback, we develop a theoretical model that allows us to address these questions. In repeated i...

The question of how people change their opinions through social interactions has been on the agenda of social scientific research for many decades. Now that the Internet has led to an ever greater interconnectedness and new forms of exchange that seem to go hand in hand with increasing political polarization, it is once again gaining in relevance....

The zero-temperature Ising model is known to reach a fully ordered ground state in sufficiently dense graphs. In sparse random graphs, the dynamics gets absorbed in disordered local minima at magnetization close to zero. Here we find that the non-equilibrium transition between the ordered and the disordered regime occurs at an average degree that i...

Capturing the complexity of interpersonal dynamics – emerging from the approach and avoidance motivation of two individuals in dyadic interplay that unfolds simultaneously on multiple time scales in order to satisfy their psychological needs – remains a scientific challenge. In line with calls for embracing complexity in psychological research usin...

This is the final chapter of the book "Networks - Performance - Culture: transdisciplinary perspectives and interrelations" (Eds: Daniel Reupke, Sven Banisch, Meike Beyer, Philip Roth und Julia Thibaut.). It is an attempt to synthesize and reflect on the heterogeneous set of previous chapters most of which resulting from the conference "Netzwerke -...

This infographic is the result of an experimental student project realized in the winter term 2021/22 at the Karlsruhe Institut for Technology. The aim of the seminar was to explore the parliamentary speeches of 19th legislative period of the German Bundestag through the lens of NLP tools and semantic networks.

Online debates and debate spheres challenge our assumptions about democracy, politics, journalism, trust, and truth in ways that make them a necessary object of study. In the present article, we argue that the study of online arguments can benefit from an interdisciplinary approach that combines computational methods for text analysis with conceptu...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fdata.2021.731349.].

Spätestens seit der kulturellen Wende in der Netzwerkforschung besteht mehr oder weniger Konsens darüber, dass Netzwerke und Kultur in einem starken Abhängigkeitsverhältnis zueinander stehen. Aus unterschiedlichen Forschungsperspektiven wird die Beziehung zwischen Netzwerken und Kultur seither auf theoretische wie methodische Implikationen geprüft,...

Force-directed layout algorithms are ubiquitously-used tools for network visualization across a variety of scientific disciplines. However, they lack theoretical grounding which allows to interpret their outcomes rigorously. We propose an approach building on latent space network models, which assume that the probability of nodes forming a tie depe...

Rising political polarization in recent decades has hampered and gridlocked policymaking, as well as weakened trust in democratic institutions. These developments have been linked to the idea that new media technology fosters extreme views and political conflict by facilitating self-segregation into “echo chambers” where opinions are isolated and r...

The paper explores the notion of a reconfiguration of political space in the context of the rise of populism and its effects on the political system. We focus on Germany and the appearance of the new right wing party “Alternative for Germany” (AfD). The idea of a political space is closely connected to the ubiquitous use of spatial metaphors in pol...

The paper explores the notion of a reconfiguration of political space in the context of the rise of populism and its effects on the political system. We focus on Germany and the appearance of the new right wing party "Alternative for Germany" (AfD). Many scholars of politics discuss the rise of the new populism in Western Europe and the US with res...

We combine empirical experimental research on biased argument processing with a computational theory of group deliberation in order to clarify the role of biased processing in debates around energy. The experiment reveals a strong tendency to consider arguments aligned with the current attitude more persuasive and to downgrade those speaking agains...

We present an open-source interface for scientists to explore Twitter data through interactive network visualizations. Combining data collection, transformation and visualization in one easily accessible framework, the twitter explorer connects distant and close reading of Twitter data through the interactive exploration of interaction networks and...

This article analyses public debate on Twitter via network representations of retweets and replies. We argue that tweets observable on Twitter have both a direct and mediated effect on the perception of public opinion. Through the interplay of the two networks, it is possible to identify potentially misleading representations of public opinion on t...

This multi-level model of opinion formation considers that attitudes on different issues are usually not independent. In the model, agents exchange beliefs regarding a series of facts. A cognitive structure of evaluative associations links different (partially overlapping) sets of facts on different political issues and determines agents’ attitudinal...

This article analyses public debate on Twitter via network representations of retweets and replies. We argue that tweets observable on Twitter have both a direct and mediated effect on the perception of public opinion. On this basis, we show that through the interplay of the two network representations, it is possible to investigate which opinion g...

What are the mechanisms by which groups with certain opinions gain public voice and force others holding a different view into silence? And how does social media play into this? Drawing on recent neuro-scientific insights into the processing of social feedback, we develop a theoretical model that allows to address these questions. The model capture...

We present an open-source interface for scientists to explore Twitter data through interactive network visualizations. Combining data collection, transformation and visualization in one easily accessible framework, the twitter explorer connects distant and close reading of Twitter data through the interactive exploration of interaction networks and...

Modelling efforts in opinion dynamics have to a large extent ignored that opinion exchange between individuals can also have an effect on how willing they are to express their opinion publicly. Here, we introduce a model of public opinion expression. Two groups of agents with different opinion on an issue interact with each other, changing the will...

News website comment sections are spaces where potentially conflicting opinions and beliefs are voiced. Addressing questions of how to study such cultural and societal conflicts through technological means, the present article critically examines possibilities and limitations of machine-guided exploration and potential facilitation of on-line opini...

We explore a new mechanism to explain polarization phenomena in opinion dynamics. The model is based on the idea that agents evaluate alternative views on the basis of the social feedback obtained on expressing them. A high support of the favored and therefore expressed opinion in the social environment, is treated as a positive social feedback whi...

A multi-level model of opinion formation is presented which takes into account that attitudes on different issues are usually not independent. In the model, agents exchange beliefs regarding a series of facts. A cognitive structure of evaluative associations links different (partially overlapping) sets of facts to different political issues and det...

Motivationale Kongruenz entsteht, wenn Menschen ihre motivationalen Ziele (z.B. gemocht werden oder autonom sein) in ihrer Umwelt erfolgreich realisieren können. Gelingt dies nicht und verbleibt eine Diskrepanz zwischen motivationalen Zielen und Wahrnehmung entsteht Inkongruenz, die als eine Ursache für die Entstehung und Aufrechterhaltung von Psyc...

We explore a new mechanism to explain polarization phenomena in opinion dynamics in which agents evaluate alternative views on the basis of the social feedback obtained on expressing them. High support of the favored opinion in the social environment, is treated as a positive feedback which reinforces the value associated to this opinion. In connec...

This work is a contribution to interweaving two lines of research that have developed in almost separate ways: Markov chains and agent-based models (ABMs). The former represents one of the simplest forms of a stochastic process while the latter puts a strong emphasis on heterogeneity and social interactions. This chapter provides an introduction to...

This book presents a Markov chain approach for the analysis of agent-based models (ABMs). It provides a general framework of aggregation in agent-based and related computational models by making use of Markov chain aggregation and lumpability theory in order to link between the micro-level dynamical behavior and higher-level processes defined by ma...

This chapter is an attempt to synthesize some of the thoughts that have been developed throughout this work and relate them to computational accounts of emergence. While more specific problems concerning the methods developed in the previous chapters—their limitations and possible generalizations—have been discussed at the end of each chapter, this...

This chapter is devoted to the study of a non-Markovian case building upon the analysis of the contrarian voter model (CVM) discussed in the previous chapter. As noted earlier, two things may happen by projecting the microscopic Markov chain associated to an agent-based model (ABM) onto a coarser partition. First, the macro process is still a Marko...

This chapter spells out the most important theoretical ideas developed in this book. However, it begins with an illustrative introductory description of agent-based models (ABMs) in order to provide an intuition for what follows. It then shows for a class of ABMs that, at the micro level, they give rise to random walks on regular graphs (Sect. 3.2)...

In this chapter, the results from the previous chapters are applied to the contrarian voter model (CVM from now on). This model is an extension of the VM which accounts for so-called contrarian behavior. Contrarian behavior relates to the presence of individuals that do not seek conformity under all circumstances or to the existence of certain situ...

In this paper, we develop an agent-based version of the Diamond search equilibrium model - also called Coconut Model. In this model, agents are faced with production decisions that have to be evaluated based on their expectations about the future utility of the produced entity which in turn depends on the global production level via a trading mecha...

In this paper, we develop an agent-based version of the Diamond search equilibrium model - also called Coconut Model. In this model, agents are faced with production decisions that have to be evaluated based on their expectations about the future utility of the produced entity which in turn depends on the global production level via a trading mecha...

Because the dynamics of complex systems is the result of both decisive local events and reinforced global effects, the prediction of such systems could not do without a genuine multilevel approach. This paper proposes to found such an approach on information theory. Starting from a complete microscopic description of the system dynamics, we are loo...

As Physics did in previous centuries, there is currently a common dream of extracting generic laws of nature in economics, sociology, neuroscience, by focalising the description of phenomena to a minimal set of variables and parameters, linked together by causal equations of evolution whose structure may reveal hidden principles. This requires a hu...

As Physics did in previous centuries, there is currently a common dream of extracting generic laws of nature in economics, sociology, neuroscience, by focalising the description of phenomena to a minimal set of variables and parameters, linked together by causal equations of evolution whose structure may reveal hidden principles. This requires a hu...

Network-based approaches play an increasingly important role in the analysis of data even in systems in which a network representation is not immediately apparent. This is particularly true for linguistic networks, which use to be induced from a linguistic data set for which a network perspective is only one out of several options for representatio...

This self-contained text develops a Markov chain approach that makes the rigorous analysis of a class of microscopic models that specify the dynamics of complex systems at the individual level possible. It presents a general framework of aggregation in agent-based and related computational models, one which makes use of lumpability and information...

This chapter is devoted to the analysis of a simple opinion model in order to illustrate the ideas developed in the previous chapter. The projection from micro to macro emphasizes the particular role played by homogeneous mixing as a requirement for the Markovianity of the projected model. We present a Markov chain analysis of the binary voter mode...

In the third chapter, we have seen that an agent-based model (ABM) defines a process of change at the individual level—a micro process—by which in each time step one configuration of individuals is transformed into another configuration. For a class of models we have shown this micro process to be a Markov chain on the space of all possible agent c...

In this chapter, we inspect well-known population genetics and social dynamics models. In these models, interacting individuals, while participating in a self-organizing process, give rise to the emergence of complex behaviors and patterns. While one main focus in population genetics is on the adaptive behavior of a population, social dynamics is m...

Abstract. For Agent Based Models, in particular the Voter Model (VM), a general framework of aggregation is developed which exploits the symmetries of the agent network G. Depending on the symmetry group Aut!(N) of the weighted agent network, certain ensembles of agent configurations can be interchanged without affecting the dynamical properties of...

For Agent-based models, in particular the Voter Model (VM), a general framework of aggregation is developed which exploits the symmetries of the agent network G. Depending on the symmetry group Aut ω (N) of the weighted agent network, certain ensembles of agent configurations can be interchanged without affecting the dynamical properties of the VM....

The aim of this book is to advocate and promote network models of linguistic systems that are both based on thorough mathematical models and substantiated in terms of linguistics. In this way, the book contributes first steps towards establishing a statistical network theory as a theoretical basis of linguistic network analysis the boarder of the n...

An analytical treatment of a simple opinion model with contrarian behavior is presented. The focus is on the stationary dynamics of the model and in particular on the effect of inhomogeneities in the interaction topology on the stationary behavior. We start from a micro-level Markov chain description of the model. Markov chain aggregation is then...

This paper describes a formalization of agent-based models (ABMs) as random walks on regular graphs and relates the symmetry group of those graphs to a coarse-graining of the ABM that is still Markovian. An ABM in which $N$ agents can be in $\delta$ different states leads to a Markov chain with $\delta^N$ states. In ABMs with a sequential update sc...

This thesis introduces a Markov chain approach that allows a rigorous analysis of a class of agent-based models (ABMs). It provides a general framework of aggregation in agent-based and related computational models by making use of Markov chain aggregation and lumpability theory in order to link between the micro and the macro level of observation....

Die Wissenschaft befindet sich in einer Periode, in der Interdisziplinarität eine immer wichtigere Rolle spielt. Dies bezieht sich nicht nur auf verhältnismäßig nahe Gebiete wie etwa Biologie und Chemie (= Biochemie) oder Soziologie und Psychologie (= Sozialpsychologie), sondern auch und gerade auf Interaktionen, die über die Grenzen zwischen den N...

A general framework of aggregation for the Voter Model (VM) is developed which exploits the symmetries of the agent network $G$. Depending on the symmetry group $Aut(G)$ of the graph, certain ensembles of agent configurations can be interchanged without affecting the probabilistic structure of the VM. These nodes can be aggregated into the same mac...

We analyze the dynamics of agent--based models (ABMs) from a Markovian perspective and derive explicit statements about the possibility of linking a microscopic agent model to the dynamical processes of macroscopic observables that are useful for a precise understanding of the model dynamics. In this way the dynamics of collective variables may be...

In this paper, we inspect well-known population genetics and social dynamics models. In these models, interacting individuals, while participating in a self-organizing process, give rise to the emergence of complex behaviors and patterns. While one main focus in population genetics is on the adaptive behavior of a population, social dynamics is mor...

This paper introduces a Markov chain approach that allows a rigorous analysis of agent based opinion dynamics as well as other related agent based models (ABM). By viewing the ABM dynamics as a micro description of the process, we show how the corresponding macro description is obtained by a projection construction. Then, well known conditions for...

While the number and variety of models to explain opinion exchange dynamics is huge, attempts to justify the model results using empirical data are relatively rare. As linking to real data is essential for establishing model credibility, this Letter develops an empirical confirmation experiment by which an opinion model is related to real election...

This paper examines the interplay of opinion exchange dynamics and communication network formation. An opinion formation procedure is introduced which is based on an abstract representation of opinions as k-dimensional bit-strings. Individuals interact if the difference in the opinion strings is below a defined similarity threshold dI. Depending on...

This paper describes an interactive software tool for the visualisation and the design of artistic fractal images. The software (called AttractOrAnalyst) implements a fast algorithm for the visualisation of basins of attraction of iterated function systems, many of which show fractal properties. It also presents an intuitive technique for fractal s...

Children television productions have been using puppets for a long time. Since the early days of computer ani- mation, computer puppet simulation has been researched intensively. Complex motion capture equipment allows nowadays the real time mapping of movement for virtual puppets (performance animation). However, the costs of capturing equipment a...

This paper introduces physical laws into the real-time animation of fur and grass. The main idea to achieve this, is to combine shell-based rendering with a mass-spring system. In a preprocessing step, a volume array is filled with the structure of fur and grass by a method based on exponential functions. The volumetric data is used to generate a s...