Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34894735›Full record

ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2022

Collective minds: social network topology shapes collective cognition.

Ida Momennejad

Abstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
15citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

15 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. The effect of habitat health and environmental change on cultural diversity and richness in animals.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Review
  4. Article
  5. Human-inspired strategies for controlling swarm systems.Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2025
    Review
  6. The Relative Contributions of Traits and Contexts on Social Network Learning.Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science · 2025
    Article
  7. Review
  8. Article
  9. Collective events and individual affect shape autobiographical memory.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023
    Article
  10. A rubric for human-like agents and NeuroAI.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023
    Review
  11. Promoting the Integration of Elderly Healthcare and Elderly Nursing: Evidence from the Chinese Government.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022
    Article
  12. Social learning in swarm robotics.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022
    Article
  13. The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022
    Article
  14. The origins of human cumulative culture: from the foraging niche to collective intelligence.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022
    Article
  15. Paradox of diversity in the collective brain.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Ida MomennejadMicrosoft Research NYC, New York, NY, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-0830-3973

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Human cognition is not solitary, it is shaped by collective learning and memory. Unlike swarms or herds, human social networks have diverse topologies, serving diverse modes of collective cognition and behaviour. Here, we review research that combines network structure with psychological and neural experiments and modelling to understand how the topology of social networks shapes collective cognition. First, we review graph-theoretical approaches to behavioural experiments on collective memory, belief propagation and problem solving. These results show that different topologies of communication networks synchronize or integrate knowledge differently, serving diverse collective goals. Second, we discuss neuroimaging studies showing that human brains encode the topology of one's larger social network and show similar neural patterns to neural patterns of our friends and community ties (e.g. when watching movies). Third, we discuss cognitive similarities between learning social and non-social topologies, e.g. in spatial and associative learning, as well as common brain regions involved in processing social and non-social topologies. Finally, we discuss recent machine learning approaches to collective communication and cooperation in multi-agent artificial networks. Combining network science with cognitive, neural and computational approaches empowers investigating how social structures shape collective cognition, which can in turn help design goal-directed social network topologies. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines'.

Indexed as

BrainCognitionHumansKnowledgeSocial Networkingcognitive neurosciencecollective cognitioncollective memoryhuman memorynetwork topologysocial networks

Identifiers

PMID34894735
PMCPMC8666914

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.