Evolutionary prisoner's dilemma games with one-dimensional local interaction and imitation

Abstract

In this paper we explore the impact of imitation rules on players' long-run behaviors in evolutionary prisoner's dilemma games. All players sit sequentially and equally spaced around a circle. Players are assumed to interact only with their neighbors, and to imitate either their successful neighbors and/or themselves or the successful actions taken by their neighbors and/or themselves. In the imitating-successful-player dynamics, full defection is the unique long-run equilibrium as the probability of players' experimentations (or mutations) tend to 0. By contrast, full cooperation could emerge in the long run under the imitating-successful-action dynamics. Moreover, it is discovered that the convergence rate to equilibrium under local interaction could be slower than that under global interaction.