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Information Cascade Simulator

Watch rational agents queue up one by one, each with a noisy private signal, and see exactly when the crowd's accumulated choices become so persuasive that every later agent rationally ignores their own eyes and copies the herd — sometimes locking onto the wrong answer.

Society & Economics2DEasy60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version

This simulator plays out the Bikhchandani–Hirshleifer–Welch model of rational herding: agents arrive one at a time, each holding a private signal about a hidden true state that is only somewhat reliable. Every agent can see everyone who went before them — not their signals, just their choices — and updates a running log-odds tally. As soon as the public tally leans two votes toward one option, the math shows that no private signal, however accurate, can flip a rational agent's decision, so every subsequent agent rationally ignores their own information and copies the crowd. Watch how fast the cascade forms, how often it locks onto the wrong answer, and how the private-signal accuracy slider changes the odds without ever changing the two-vote threshold itself.

⚙ Under the hood

Agents observe and mimic others' decisions, leading to a collective lock on an incorrect answer as public evidence overtakes individual signals.

social dynamicsinformation cascaderational herdingcollective decision-making

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install