Understanding Collective Intelligence: Investigating the Role of Collective Memory, Attention, and Reasoning Processes

Abstract

As society has come to rely on groups and technology to address many of its most challenging problems, there is a growing need to understand how technology-enabled, distributed, and dynamic collectives can be designed to solve a wide range of problems over time in the face of complex and changing environmental conditions—an ability we define as “collective intelligence.” We describe recent research on the Transaction Systems Model of Collective Intelligence (TSM-CI) that integrates literature from diverse areas of psychology to conceptualize the underpinnings of collective intelligence. The TSM-CI articulates the development and mutual adaptation of transactive memory, transactive attention, and transactive reasoning systems that together support the emergence and maintenance of collective intelligence. We also review related research on computational indicators of transactive-system functioning based on collaborative process behaviors that enable agent-based teammates to diagnose and potentially intervene to address developing issues. We conclude by discussing future directions in developing the TSM-CI to support research on developing collective human-machine intelligence and to identify ways to design technology to enhance it.

The Psychology of Collectives

“…Collectives can display behavior with complex temporal dynamics that generates path dependencies (Woolley & Gupta, 2024) and tipping points (Thurner, 2024). An example is the phenomenon of hysteresis (Sznajd-Weron et al, 2024), whereby collective change depends on past collective experiences.…”

“…Levin and Weber (2024) discuss how collective phenomena, such as affective polarization and collective action, emerge from diverse individual processes such as different problem-solving strategies, projection, and stereotyping. Woolley and Gupta (2024) describe a novel framework for collective intelligence as emerging from the interaction of collective memory, attention, and reasoning processes. Wheatley et al (2024) argue that a full understanding of individual minds requires studying them in collective context, describing evidence of the dynamic interplay between individuals and collectives, and discussing promises and challenges of different methods available today to study this interplay.…”