Modelling social agents: Communication as actions

Abstract

In this paper we present a formal framework for social agents. The social agents consist of four components: the information component (containing knowledge and belief), the action component, the motivational component (where goals, intentions, etc. play arole) and the social component (containing aspects of speech acts and relations between agents). The main aim of this work was to describe all componentsin a uniform way, such that it is possible to verify each component separately but also formally describe the interactions between the different components. E.g. the effect of a speech act on the believes of an agent or on the commitment to a goal it pursues.