Interest and Attention: Modeling interest level in a group of continuously interacting ideal individuals

How does the collective interest of a group evolve during a meeting? How can individuals affect the collective interest of the group? Here we model interest as a state variable of an individual, relating an individual's attention span as it changes over time through interactions and endogenous orienting. The presumed dominant factors dictating an individual's interest are: inherent attentional lapses, cues from peers, and a holistic forcing effect generated by a presenter. By allowing individuals' interest levels to interact and evolve, a variety of different scenarios can be investigated.