The Vital Applet

D. Joyce, J. Kennison, N. Thompson
Departments of Mathematics and Psychology
Clark University
May, 2002


The Vital Applet. See below for an explanation.


This is like the second Arean Applet in many ways, but the fundamental model is changed

Vitality and Growth

The animals (call them that rather than players) are given an initial vitality. As they play games (compete and cooperate with other animals) the scores they get are added to their vitality. When their vitality reaches a threshold, then they reproduce. The payoff matrix may have negative values, and should the vitality of an animal become 0 or negative, then it dies.

There is an initial number of animals, and a maximum number of animals. If the population in a herd becomes greater than the maximum, some of them will die, randomly without regard to their vitalities.

The files for this applet are listed here. The Vital.html
file is this file you're looking at. The *.java files
are the program source files for the applet. The *.class
files are the compiled files that run when the applet is
running. They're all needed to run the applet.

My way Or The Highway: Introduction

David E. Joyce,
John Kennison,
both of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science,
and Nicholas Thompson,
of the Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology.
Clark University
Worcester, MA 01610