Prisoner's dilemma game on adaptive networks under limited foresight

We study the emergence of cooperation in an environment where players in prisoner's dilemma game (PDG) not only update their strategies but also change their interaction relations. Different from previous studies in which players update their strategies according to the imitation rule, in this article, the strategies are updated with limited foresight. We find that two absorbing states—full cooperation and full defection—can be reached, assuming that players can delete interaction relations unilaterally, but new relations can only be created with the mutual consent of both partners. Simulation experiments show that high levels of cooperation in large populations can be achieved when the temptation to defect in PDG is low. Moreover, we explore the factors which influence the level of cooperation. These results provide new insights into the cooperation in social dilemma and into corresponding control strategies. © 2012Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity, 2012