Agents for educational games and simulations

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications

How to Knit Your Own Markov Blanket

Hohwy (Hohwy 2016, Hohwy 2017) argues there is a tension between the free energy principle and leading depictions of mind as embodied, enactive, and extended (so-called ‘EEE1 cognition’). The tension is traced to the importance, in free energy formulations, of a conception of mind and agency that depends upon the presence of a ‘Markov blanket’ demarcating the agent from the surrounding world. In what follows I show that the Markov blanket considerations do not, in fact, lead to the kinds of tension that Hohwy depicts. On the contrary, they actively favour the EEE story. This is because the Markov property, as exemplified in biological agents, picks out neither a unique nor a stationary boundary. It is this multiplicity and mutability– rather than the absence of agent-environment boundaries as such - that EEE cognition celebrates

Affect and believability in game characters:a review of the use of affective computing in games

Virtual agents are important in many digital environments. Designing a character that highly engages users in terms of interaction is an intricate task constrained by many requirements. One aspect that has gained more attention recently is the effective dimension of the agent. Several studies have addressed the possibility of developing an affect-aware system for a better user experience. Particularly in games, including emotional and social features in NPCs adds depth to the characters, enriches interaction possibilities, and combined with the basic level of competence, creates a more appealing game. Design requirements for emotionally intelligent NPCs differ from general autonomous agents with the main goal being a stronger player-agent relationship as opposed to problem solving and goal assessment. Nevertheless, deploying an affective module into NPCs adds to the complexity of the architecture and constraints. In addition, using such composite NPC in games seems beyond current technology, despite some brave attempts. However, a MARPO-type modular architecture would seem a useful starting point for adding emotions

Life is an Adventure! An agent-based reconciliation of narrative and scientific worldviews\ud

The scientific worldview is based on laws, which are supposed to be certain, objective, and independent of time and context. The narrative worldview found in literature, myth and religion, is based on stories, which relate the events experienced by a subject in a particular context with an uncertain outcome. This paper argues that the concept of “agent”, supported by the theories of evolution, cybernetics and complex adaptive systems, allows us to reconcile scientific and narrative perspectives. An agent follows a course of action through its environment with the aim of maximizing its fitness. Navigation along that course combines the strategies of regulation, exploitation and exploration, but needs to cope with often-unforeseen diversions. These can be positive (affordances, opportunities), negative (disturbances, dangers) or neutral (surprises). The resulting sequence of encounters and actions can be conceptualized as an adventure. Thus, the agent appears to play the role of the hero in a tale of challenge and mystery that is very similar to the "monomyth", the basic storyline that underlies all myths and fairy tales according to Campbell [1949]. This narrative dynamics is driven forward in particular by the alternation between prospect (the ability to foresee diversions) and mystery (the possibility of achieving an as yet absent prospect), two aspects of the environment that are particularly attractive to agents. This dynamics generalizes the scientific notion of a deterministic trajectory by introducing a variable “horizon of knowability”: the agent is never fully certain of its further course, but can anticipate depending on its degree of prospect

Computational Modeling of Emotion: Towards Improving the Inter- and Intradisciplinary Exchange

International audienceThe past years have seen increasing cooperation between psychology and computer science in the field of computational modeling of emotion. However, to realize its potential, the exchange between the two disciplines, as well as the intradisciplinary coordination, should be further improved. We make three proposals for how this could be achieved. The proposals refer to: 1) systematizing and classifying the assumptions of psychological emotion theories; 2) formalizing emotion theories in implementation-independent formal languages (set theory, agent logics); and 3) modeling emotions using general cognitive architectures (such as Soar and ACT-R), general agent architectures (such as the BDI architecture) or general-purpose affective agent architectures. These proposals share two overarching themes. The first is a proposal for modularization: deconstruct emotion theories into basic assumptions; modularize architectures. The second is a proposal for unification and standardization: Translate different emotion theories into a common informal conceptual system or a formal language, or implement them in a common architecture

Decision and intuition during organizational change : an evolutionary critique of dual process theory

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review intuition in the context of organizational change. We argue that intuition as a concept requires attention and its formulation is necessary prior to its application in organizations. The paper provides a critique of Dual Process Theory and highlights shortcomings in organization theorizing of intuition. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is conceptual and provides in-depth theoretical discussions by drawing from the literature on decision and intuition in the context of organizational change. Findings: Investigating whether Dual Process Theory is sufficiently clear, we found ambiguity. Specifically, the current definition provided by Dane and Pratt is not clear in terms of its four sections: (1) The consciousness of non-conscious processing, (2) involving holistic associations, (3) that are produced rapidly, which (4) result in affectively charged judgments. Finally, we note that the Evolutionary perspective is missing and we provide foundational concepts for such a perspective, including the discussion of information templates, memes and genes, as argued by research, condition intuition. Originality/value: The paper finds that an evolutionary perspective develops a picture of intuition as an adaptive resource. This evolutionary perspective is currently absent in research and we provide foundational concepts for such a perspective. We propose specific arguments to highlight the evolutionary perspective

Human Nature in the Adaptation of Trust

This chapter pleads for more inspiration from human nature, in agent-based modeling.As an illustration of an effort in that direction, it summarizes and discusses an agentbased model of the build-up and adaptation of trust between multiple producers and suppliers.The central question is whether, and under what conditions, trust and loyalty are viable in markets.While the model incorporates some well known behavioural phenomena from the trust literature, more extended modeling of human nature is called for.The chapter explores a line of further research on the basis of notions of mental framing and frame switching on the basis of relational signaling, derived from social psychology.trust;transaction costs;buyer-supplier relationships;social psychology