| Title |
Cognitive Stigmergy: Towards a Framework Based on Agents and Artifacts |
| Authors |
Alessandro Ricci, Andrea Omicini, Mirko Viroli, Luca Gardelli, Enrico Oliva |
| Type |
In Article Collection/Post-Proceedings |
| Booktitle |
Environments for Multi-Agent Systems III |
| Editor |
Weyns, Danny and Parunak, H. Van Dyke and Michel, Fabien |
| Pages |
124--140 |
| Series |
LNCS (LNAI) |
| Publisher |
Springer |
| Volume |
4389 |
| Year |
2007 |
| ISBN |
978-3-540-71102-5 |
| ISSN |
0302-9743 |
| DOI |
10.1007/978-3-540-71103-2_7 |
| Note |
3rd International Workshop (E4MAS 2006), Hakodate, Japan, 8 May 2006. Selected Revised and Invited Papers |
| Abstract |
Stigmergy has been adopted in MAS (multi-agent systems) and in other
fields as a technique for realising forms of emergent coordination
in societies composed by a large amount of ant-like, non-rational
agents. In this paper we discuss a conceptual (and engineering) framework
for exploring the use of stigmergy in the context of societies composed
by cognitive / rational agents, as a means for supporting high-level,
knowledge-based social activities.multi-agent We refer to this kind
of stigmergy as cognitive stigmergy. Cognitive stigmergy is based
on the use of artifacts as tools populating and structuring the agent
working environment, and which agents perceive, share and rationally
use for their individual goals. Artifacts are environment abstractions
that mediate agent interaction and enable emergent coordination:
as such, they can be used to encapsulate and enact the stigmergic
mechanisms and the shared knowledge upon which emergent coordination
processes are based. In this paper, we start exploring this scenario
introducing an agent-based framework for cognitive stigmergy based
on artifacts. After discussing the main conceptual issues—the notion
of cognitive stigmergy and the role of artifacts—, we sketch an abstract
architecture for cognitive stigmergy, and outline its implementation
upon the TuCSoN agent coordination infrastructure. |
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