A research plat­form for study­ing how groups of people think, feel and behave togeth­er in groups.

It works as an app that people can access with their smart­phone. After logging in, the Hive envi­ron­ment dis­plays a dot that can be dragged around. The coor­di­nate of each dot is record­ed, thus allow­ing exper­i­menters to analyze tra­jec­to­ries and rest periods in a similar way to exper­i­ments uti­liz­ing eye or mouse track­ing. Each par­tic­i­pant sees their own dot, and other par­tic­i­pants’, moving on the central display. Then, they perform dif­fer­ent tasks while mon­i­tor­ing other indi­vid­u­als’ deci­sions, rep­re­sent­ed by the move­ments of the other dots. One of the studies involv­ing the Hive inves­ti­gates the link between mimicry and self-cat­e­go­riza­tion, and it attempts to answer the fol­low­ing ques­tion: Do we always do what others do and, if not, what are the factors that influ­ence our deci­sions in a group?

Find out more about The Hive.