Abstract
This article presents a Virtual Laboratory that enables the researcher to try hypothesis and confirm data analysis about different historical processes and cultural dynamics. This Virtual Cultural Laboratory (VCL) is developed using agent-based modeling technology. Individuals' tendencies and preferences as well as the behavior of cultural objects in the transformation of cultural information are taken into consideration. In addition, the effect of local interactions at different scales over time and space is visualized through the VCL interface. Information repositories, cultural items, borders, population size, individual' tendencies and other features are determined by the user. Finally, the researcher can also isolate specific factors whose effect on the global system might be of interest to the researcher. All the code can be found at http://projects.cultureplex.ca/
Highlights
1.1 This work derives from the necessity to undertake studies of cultural dynamics that include cultural actions at a local level as well as any successive transformations that any informational unit or cultural product undergoes in a communicative chain
The need to create a theoretical model of cultural dynamics in which the individuals' behaviour plays a strong role derives from the many cultural communities involved and the different scales used to study the spread of the baroque culture from Europe to America at the beginning of the Early Modern Period
6.1 Agent-based modeling enables researchers in the social sciences and humanities to undertake studies of cultural and historical dynamics at several scales that range from the local level to macro processes over large periods of time and extended geographic areas
Summary
The repositories possess preferences that allow them to decide about messages they receive. Once an individual sends a message to a repository, the latter follows criteria that depend as much on the message as on the preferences and tolerance of the repository to store or reject the message. The storage capacity of the repositories could not exceed a prefixed percentage of the global amount of messages in the world. If this number surpasses the amount allowed based on the characteristics of the repository, one of its messages is selected for elimination. We show how to define this curve and different ways to use it This technique allows us to construct our model simulating the normal operating procedure in libraries and museums[10]
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