Abstraction Relations between Internal and Behavioural Agent Models for Collective Decision Making

Abstract

Abstract. For agent-based modelling of collective phenomena individual agent behaviours can be modelled either from an agent-internal perspective, in the form of relations involving internal states of the agent, or from an agentexternal, behavioural perspective, in the form of input-output relations for the agent, abstracting from internal states. Illustrated by a case study on collective decision making, this paper addresses how the two types of agent models can be related to each other. First an internal agent model for collective decision making is presented, based on neurological principles. It is shown how by an automated systematic transformation a behavioural model can be obtained, abstracting from the internal states. In addition, an existing behavioural agent model for collective decision making incorporating principles on social diffusion is described. It is shown under which conditions and how by an interpretation mapping the obtained abstracted behavioural agent model can be related to this existing behavioural agent model for collective decision making.

From Mirroring to the Emergence of Shared Understanding and Collective Power

“…However, under certain assumptions such internal models can be abstracted to behavioural model providing more efficient processing, which is important especially when larger numbers of agents are simulated; for more details; for example, see [55], [56].…”

Hierarchical Modeling and Analysis of Social Roles for Collective Decision-Making Support

“…As for the studies on Multi-Agent collective decisionmaking systems [7][8][9][10][11], Li et al studied the problem of collective decision-making in the case where the agents' preferences were represented by CP-nets (conditional preference networks) [7]. Bosse et al presented a computational model which can not only enable the individual intentions to converge to an emerging common decision, but also achieve the sharing of underlying individual beliefs and emotions at the same time [8].…”

“…O'Connell et al investigated the problem of designing the mechanisms to control the collective decisions made by self-interested autonomous agents [9]. Sharpanskykh et al addressed how internal agent models and behavioral agent models for collective decision-making can be related to each other [10]. Yu et al presented an implicit leadership algorithm based on a simple, purely local control law which allows all agents to follow a single rule and efficiently reach a common group decision without complex coordination mechanisms [11].…”

Biological and Computational Perspectives on the Emergence of Social Phenomena: Shared Understanding and Collective Power

“…However, under certain assumptions such internal models can be abstracted to behavioural agent models providing more efficient processing, which is important especially when larger numbers of agents are simulated. In [55], [56] it is addressed how more complex internal agent models can be abstracted to less complex behavioural models. Agent models used for collective social phenomena traditionally are kept simple, and often are specified by simple reactive rules that determine a direct response (output) based on the agent's current perception (input).…”

“…The idea is that when these assumptions are fulfilled, for each received input, before new input arrives, the agent computes its internal equilibrium states, and based on that determines its behaviour. More on such abstraction methods can be found in [55], [56].…”