Predicting panic is of critical importance in many areas of human and animal behavior, notably in the context of economics. The recent financial crisis is a case in point. Panic may be due to a specific external threat or self-generated nervousness. Here we show that the recent economic crisis and earlier large single-day panics were preceded by extended periods of high levels of market mimicry-direct evidence of uncertainty and nervousness, and of the comparatively weak influence of external news. High levels of mimicry can be a quite general indicator of the potential for self-organized crises.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 17. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 15 February 2026.
All research outputs
#2,835,289
of 34,334,818 outputs
Outputs from PLOS ONE
#30,550
of 224,322 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#27,008
of 280,870 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PLOS ONE
#854
of 6,699 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,334,818 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 91st percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 224,322 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 17.2. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 280,870 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 6,699 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its contemporaries.
