In an attempt to discover a community structure which comes up with the best solution, Indiana University cognitive scientist Robert Goldstone has established that more information may not always be better in solving problems.

Goldstone's research focused on group behavior and patterns in which people participate in the creation of a larger structure without them realizing it, much like ants instinctively creating colony structures.

This study used a virtual environment in which individuals worked in three controlled groups  (fully connected, locally connected, small world) tasked to solve a problem. The test subjects had to guess numbers between 1 and 100 with each number having a hidden value. The eventual goal for each individual was to accumulate the highest score through several rounds of guessing.

The fully connected group which had everyone's work completely accessible to everyone else was found to be the best at solving simple problems. When more complex problems were given, the small world group where participants were primarily aware of what their neighbors were doing but also had a few distant contacts fared better.

One clique could be coming up with one answer, another clique could be coming up with another. As a result, the group as a whole is searching the problem space more effectively.

For hard problems, connecting people by small world networks offers a good compromise between having members explore a variety of innovations, while still quickly disseminating promising innovations throughout the group