The term behavioural synchrony refers to the ability of a group of agents to coordinate collective action efficiently, a concept originally introduced by a series of empirical animal[1][2] and human[3][4] studies, and modelling papers in animals,[5][6] and humans.
[7][8] The agents are trying to coordinate collective action on a social network in which the communication is restricted to dyadic information flows.
The behavioural synchrony model universe relies on two key sets of assumptions.
The second set of assumptions concern the nature of coordination: it is assumed that the content of the coordination is not important (independent of whether it is a linguistic cue, cultural identity, or simple compass direction), but is set up in a way that the agents cannot guess the location of the final convergence point of the group from any individual information exchange.
The behavioural synchrony approach introduced behavioural realism into social network coordination, via assuming that the network structure is similar to actual human groups, and by making the coordination process not-trivial, and thus making the modelled group processes reflect human behaviour.