Research Design Connections: Better Understanding Crowds

People who design public spaces where crowding can be an issue will be intrigued by the findings of a new paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (and available free of charge here: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2089).  A related press release reports that “A new model . . . takes the point of view of an individual crowd member, and is remarkably accurate at predicting actual crowd flow, its developers say. The model . . . illustrates the role of visual perception in crowd movement. It shows how crowd members who are visible from a participant’s viewpoint determine how that participant follows the crowd and what path they take. . . . findings from case studies like this could be extrapolated to other situations in which people or animals unconsciously coordinate their behavior — such as on social media. . . .  In both situations, there is the same strong tendency …