Effects of imitation in a competing and evolving population

We propose and study a modified version of the evolutionary minority game consisting of a competing population. Agents in the population are repeatedly competing to be in a minority and they have a common strategy. Each agent has a parameter p characterizing the probability that she is following the prediction of the common strategy. Agents are lined up in a one-dimensional chain with periodic boundary condition. Imitation is allowed among nearest neighboring agents. Numerical results show that the agents evolve into a state in which they self-segregate into opposite groups characterized by extreme behavior and imitation leads to considerable enhancement in the overall performance of the population.