ArticleNature communications2021
Modularity and composite diversity affect the collective gathering of information online.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Collective problem decomposition improves the wisdom of deliberative crowds.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Best-of-n decision making by human groups.PloS one · 2026Article
- Does digital collective learning improve with more participants? An experiment on a collective learning platform.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- A new sociology of humans and machines.Nature human behaviour · 2024Review
- The functional aspects of selective exposure for collective decision-making under social influence.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Network structure shapes the impact of diversity in collective learning.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Mixed-species flock sizes and compositions influence flock members' success in three field experiments with novel feeders.PloS one · 2024Article
- Interaction among participants in a collective intelligence experiment: an emotional approach.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Compromising improves forecasting.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Paradox of diversity in the collective brain.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Evolutionary emergence of collective intelligence in large groups of students.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Many modern interactions happen in a digital space, where automated recommendations and homophily can shape the composition of groups interacting together and the knowledge that groups are able to tap into when operating online. Digital interactions are also characterized by different scales, from small interest groups to large online communities. Here, we manipulate the composition of groups based on a large multi-trait profiling space (including demographic, professional, psychological and relational variables) to explore the causal link between group composition and performance as a function of group size. We asked volunteers to search news online under time pressure and measured individual and group performance in forecasting real geo-political events. Our manipulation affected the correlation of forecasts made by people after online searches. Group composition interacted with group size so that composite diversity benefited individual and group performance proportionally to group size. Aggregating opinions of modular crowds composed of small independent groups achieved better forecasts than aggregating a similar number of forecasts from non-modular ones. Finally, we show differences existing among groups in terms of disagreement, speed of convergence to consensus forecasts and within-group variability in performance. The present work sheds light on the mechanisms underlying effective online information gathering in digital environments.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.