Swarm Theory

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/07/swarms/miller-text

This article discusses how the intelligence of a group exceeds the individual. Much like information cascades, organizations of simpler creatures (such as ants and bees) end up working by following particular patterns as opposed to making independent decisions. One interesting thing it mentioned was success of this method was a result of having "no leader". This made me think about the impact of an "expert" on an information cascade. For example, would someone deemed an expert or professional of some kind have greater influence in the information cascade than someone deemed below the average? Would the expert challening the information cascade have the same effect as a non-expert challenging the cascade, or could it perhaps carry mroe weight? I think this could be an interesting thing to look into further.

Katie, I think the amount of influence an expert has on and information cascade is very dependent on when that expert chimes in with their opinion. Take the case of two competing restaurants located next door to each other. Restaurant A has been highly reviewed by 2 critics in the town's major newspaper while Restaurant B was not reviewed at all. As an individual looking for a place to eat, you may decide on Restaurant A when you leave the house because of the reviews, but if you arrive there and find Restaurant A empty, you may choose B instead. In this case, the 'expert' would have had no effect in your final decision. However, if you arrived to find both restaurants equally busy, you would probably pick A more often than not.

In essence, what I would argue is that 'expert' opinions only have an effect so long as a cascade has not started yet. Once a cascade is started, a single opinion, whether from an expert or an average person, will most likely not have an effect.