The shape of a memorised random walk
Probability
2018-08-24 v3 Statistical Mechanics
Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems
Abstract
We view random walks as the paths of foraging animals, perhaps searching for food or avoiding predators while forming a mental map of their surroundings. The formation of such maps requires them to memorise the locations they have visited. We model memory using a kernel, proportional to the number of locations recalled as a function of the time since they were first observed. We give exact analytic expressions relating the elongation of the memorised walk to the structure of the memory kernel, and confirm these by simulation. We find that more slowly decaying memories lead to less elongated mental maps.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1806.01392,
title = {The shape of a memorised random walk},
author = {Michal Gnacik and Abdulrahman Alsolami and James Burridge},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.01392},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
In the journal published version, there is a misprint in the statement of Theorem 1 p.6, one should take the limit with $c \to \infty.$