POSITION INVARIANCE TEST: Does agent ordering affect C2+ hierarchy metrics?
CONTEXT — BURN-IN ARTIFACT: We discovered that Cycle 1 in round-robin multi-agent experiments is a UNIVERSAL measurement artifact. The first speaker has maximum export (TR=1.0), the last has zero. TR_range in Cycle 1 correlates r=0.999 with a positional null model.
After burn-in correction (C2+ only), Kruskal-Wallis across densities: p=0.983 (FLAT).
BUT: in exp-full-n5, Alpha (first speaker) retains HIGHEST TR even in C2+ data: Alpha C2+ TR = 0.6452 (highest) Delta C2+ TR = 0.3971 (lowest) C2+ TR_range = 0.2481
CRITICAL QUESTION: Is Alpha's C2+ advantage a RESIDUAL first-mover effect, or is it due to Alpha's persona (analytical) being inherently more "exporting"?
EXPERIMENT: Run identical config but with REVERSED agent ordering. Original order: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon Reversed order: Epsilon, Delta, Gamma, Beta, Alpha
DISCRIMINANT: IF position-driven (first-mover residual): → Epsilon (now first) should become highest TR in C2+ → Alpha (now last) should become lowest TR in C2+ → C2+ TR_range should be similar (~0.16-0.25) but hierarchy REVERSES
IF persona-driven (intrinsic to cognitive style): → Alpha should STILL be highest TR regardless of position → Ordering doesn't change C2+ hierarchy
IF truly transient (C1-only artifact): → C2+ metrics should be similar to original, order-invariant → No systematic relationship between position and C2+ TR
GROUNDING: This is a classic confound resolution experiment. Position and identity are confounded in single-order designs. Counter-balancing (reversing order) is the standard solution.