Towards preferential selection in the prisoner’s dilemma game

In previous works, the choice of learning neighbor for an individual has generally obeyed pure random selection or preferential selection rules. In this paper, we introduce a tunable parameter ε to characterize the strength of preferential selection and focus on the transition towards preferential selection in the spatial evolutionary game by controlling ε to guide the system from pure random selection to preferential selection. Our simulation results reveal that the introduction of preferential selection can hugely alleviate social dilemmas and enhance network reciprocity. A larger ε leads to a higher critical threshold of the temptation b for the extinction of cooperators. Moreover, we provide some intuitive explanations for the above results from the perspective of strategy transition and cooperative clusters. Finally, we examine the robustness of the results for noise K and different topologies, find that qualitative features of the results are unchanged.