The impact of different information analysis capabilities on cooperative evolution in social dilemma

It has been found that differentiated information analysis capabilities can promote altruistic behaviour through derived strategies. In this paper, differential information analysis ability is introduced into the game. In the model, information analysis ability determines the distribution of gains. When a strong player cooperates with an ordinary person, both parties gain excess returns (not a fixed proportion); cooperation among strong players has higher returns but a simultaneous increase in risk. When facing ordinary defectors, timely counterattacks can stop losses and weaken each other’s gains (with diminishing effect on strong defectors). Strong defectors have the highest gains when exploiting ordinary co-operators, but gains are impaired when encountering strong co-operators, and gains are zero for inter-defector interactions. The model defines four strategies: ordinary cooperation (OC), ordinary defection (OD), reciprocal cooperation (AC), and exploitative defection (AD). Numerical simulation results show that the four strategies can coexist. Under specific parameters, the reciprocal cooperators can not only counter the defectors to protect themselves, but also protect some of the ordinary cooperators, thus, a strong information analysis capability facilitates the evolution of cooperation to a certain extent.