Location
MC 5417
Candidate
Cameron Kerr | Applied Math, University of Waterloo
Title
Opinion dynamics and critical transitions in coupled human-environment systems
Abstract
Human-environment systems are characterized by feedbacks between environmental processes and human decision making. These systems exhibit complex dynamical behavior and critical transitions. In the first part of this talk, I investigate a coupled opinion-environment model in which environmental impacts depend on the opinions of a polarized population. The model extends previous opinion dynamics models to investigate the influence of social susceptibility, prejudice, and objectivity simultaneously. By analyzing the long-term behavior of the system, I show how the parameters governing opinion formation interact with policy levers to determine environmental outcomes. Second, I examine whether catastrophic and non-catastrophic critical transitions can be distinguished from pre-transition time series when the trajectory of the underlying bifurcation parameter is unknown. I investigate the implications of the adiabatic assumption for distinguishability and discuss conditions under which the two transition types may be distinguishable. Finally, I discuss the implications of these results for current machine learning-based early warning signals.