Delayed interactions in the noisy voter model through the periodic polling mechanism

Abstract

We investigate the effects of delayed interactions on the stationary distribution of the noisy voter model. We assume that the delayed interactions occur through the periodic polling mechanism and replace the original instantaneous two-agent interactions. In our analysis, we require that the polling period aligns with the delay in announcing poll outcomes. As expected, when the polling period is relatively short, the model with delayed interactions is almost equivalent to the original model. As the polling period increases, oscillatory behavior emerges, but the model with delayed interactions still converges to stationary distribution. The stationary distribution resembles a Beta-binomial distribution, with its shape parameters scaling with the polling period. The observed scaling behavior is non-monotonic. Namely, the shape parameters peak at some intermediate polling period.