ProMAS 2008: Programming Multi-Agent Systems pp 136-151 | Cite as

How Situated Is Your Agent? A Cognitive Perspective

  • Daghan L. Acay
  • Liz Sonenberg
  • Alessandro Ricci
  • Philippe Pasquier
Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, volume 5442)

Abstract

Software agents are situated in an environment with which they interact reactively or in a goal-directed fashion. Generally, such environments do not assume a structure, hence are deemed to be unpredictable. Recent approaches adopt an environment model where artifacts form the building blocks. Artifacts represent functional components that an agent can exploit for reaching its goals. It has been argued that software agents can improve/amend their capabilities at run time through the use of (new) artifacts as possible means. We argue that such a run time adaptation by the agents can be realized by creating an appropriate relationship between agent reasoning and the functionality of the artifacts. We have coined the term extrospection to refer to the act of an agent reasoning about the tools. In this paper, we first identify the features of extrospection, then, we extend the belief, desire, intention (BDI) agent deliberation cycle to encompass extrospection.

Keywords

Multiagent System Tool Base Operating Instruction Cognitive Perspective Agent Designer 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009

Authors and Affiliations

  • Daghan L. Acay
    • 1
  • Liz Sonenberg
    • 1
  • Alessandro Ricci
    • 2
  • Philippe Pasquier
    • 3
  1. 1.DIS, The University of MelbourneVictoriaAustralia
  2. 2.DEIS, U. Bologna in CesenaItaly
  3. 3.SIAT, Simon Fraser UniversityBritish ColumbiaCanada

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