The prisoner’s dilemma game on scale-free networks with heterogeneous imitation capability

Abstract

In human societies, personal heterogeneity may affect the strategy adoption capability of the individuals. In this paper, we study the effects of heterogeneous learning ability on the evolution of cooperation by introducing heterogeneous imitation capability of players. We design a pre-factor [Formula: see text] to represent the heterogeneous learning ability of players, which is related to the degree of players. And a parameter [Formula: see text] is used to tune the learning levels. If [Formula: see text], the learning ability of players decreases and the low-degree player has the higher reduction level, but if [Formula: see text], the learning ability of low-degree players enhances to a higher level. By carrying out extensive simulations, it reveals that the evolution of cooperation is influenced significantly by introducing player’s heterogeneous learning ability and can be promoted under the right circumstances. This finding sheds some light on the important effect of individual heterogeneity on the evolutionary game.