Impacts of novelty seeking on predictability in human mobility

Licia Amichi (1) , Aline Carneiro Viana (1) , Mark Crovella (2) , Antonio Loureiro (3)

1 TRiBE - inTeRnet BEyond the usual
2 Boston University - Computer Science Department [Boston]
3 UFMG - Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais = Federal University of Minas Gerais [Belo Horizonte, Brazil]

Predicting how humans move within space and time is a central topic in many scientific domains such as epidemic propagation, urban planning, and ride-sharing. However, current studies neglect individuals' preferences to explore and discover new places. Yet, neglecting novelty-seeking activities at first glance appears to be inconsequential on the ability to understand and predict individuals' trajectories. In this work, we claim and show the opposite: exploration moments strongly impact mobility understanding and anticipation. We start by proposing a new approach to identifying moments of novelty-seeking. Based on that, we construct individuals' mobility profiles using their exploration inclinations-Scouters (i.e., extreme explorers), Routiners (i.e., extreme returners), and Regulars (i.e., an individual with no extreme behavior). Finally, we evaluate the impacts of noveltyseeking, quality of the data, and the prediction task formulation on the theoretical and practical predictability extents. The results show the validity of our profiling and highlight the obstructive impacts of novelty-seeking activities on the predictability of human trajectories, in particular, on Scouters.

Mots clés: Individual Mobility; Exploration (Novelty-seeking); Mobility Profiling; Predictability; Prediction

Domaines: Informatique mobile; Modélisation et simulation; Environnements Informatiques pour l'Apprentissage Humain

Licia Amichi, Aline Carneiro Viana, Mark Crovella, Antonio Loureiro. Impacts of novelty seeking on predictability in human mobility. [Research Report] Inria. 2021. ⟨hal-03211998⟩