From the theory of mind to the construction of social reality (original) (raw)
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The Architecture of a Social Mind, the Social Structure of Cognitive Agents
In this chapter the relationships between cognitive agents' architecture and social phenomena produced by their behavior are discussed. What is needed in an agent's architecture designed for MAS, social theory, and a non reductive social simulation (Sun, 2001)? Which are the peculiar features of Social Structures as they emerge among cognitive agents? Which are the needed mental representations supporting or implementing cooperation, groups, norms, institutions, roles, etc.?
Cognitive Architecture and Contents for Social Structures and Interactions
Cognition and Multi-Agent Interaction: From Cognitive Modeling to Social Simulation By Ron Sun Cambridge Univ Press, 2006, pp.355-390., 2006
The aim of this chapter is trying to answer to some of the crucial questions of this book from a specific position: that of a group of theoretical psychologists and social scientists working within the domain of Artificial Intelligent, “Agents” and Multi-Agent Systems, and Social Simulation. The questions one deals with are the following ones: What is needed in an agent’s architecture designed for MAS, social theory, and a non reductive social simulation (Sun, 2001)? What is required at individual cognition level to produce the collective behavior, the emergent order, to play the social roles, to build institutions, to play functions? Which are the peculiar features of Social Structures as they emerge among cognitive agents? Which are the needed mental representations supporting or implementing cooperation, groups, norms, institutions, roles, etc.? Is methodological individualism (plus cognitive representations) sufficient for social theory? Are social phenomena (collectively) intended by the agents? Or how are they related to the agents’ understanding and intending? In this chapter it is argued (although in a synthetic way and necessarily pointing to specific works) that - Social and cultural phenomena cannot be deeply accounted for without explaining how they works through the individual agents’ minds (mental ‘counterparts’ or ‘mediators’); - This requires a richer cognitive model (architecture) for ‘Agents’, moving from formal and computational AI and ALife models but more close to those developed in psychology, cognitive science (see several chapters in this book), and in cognitive approaches in economics, sociology, organization studies. - However, the “individualistic + cognitive” approach is not sufficient for the social theory (even when modeling joint and collective attitudes and actions). The social actors do not understand, negotiate, and plan for all their collective activities and results. As well known, many social phenomena are not mentally represented: they are self-organizing and “objective” (prior to and independent from human understanding and planning). Modeling minds and actions is necessary but not sufficient for understanding social phenomena. It is also necessary to spend some words for explaining the peculiar point of view of this chapter, that otherwise might look either ‘ignorant’ or ‘arrogant’ while it is just a matter of perspective. For the author, the models of mind are not exclusive domain of psychology and cognitive science (it is enough citing the example of Economics and of the tremendous impact of its model of rational mind).
Agent-Based Models for Higher-Order Theory of Mind
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2014
Agent-based models are a powerful tool for explaining the emergence of social phenomena in a society. In such models, individual agents typically have little cognitive ability. In this paper, we model agents with the cognitive ability to make use of theory of mind. People use this ability to reason explicitly about the beliefs, desires, and goals of others. They also take this ability further, and expect other people to have access to theory of mind as well. To explain the emergence of this higher-order theory of mind, we place agents capable of theory of mind in a particular negotiation game known as Colored Trails, and determine to what extent theory of mind is beneficial to computational agents. Our results show that the use of first-order theory of mind helps agents to offer better trades. We also find that second-order theory of mind allows agents to perform better than first-order colleagues, by taking into account competing offers that other agents may make. Our results suggest that agents experience diminishing returns on orders of theory of mind higher than level two, similar to what is seen in people. These findings corroborate those in more abstract settings.
Grounding Social Action and Phenomena in Mental Representations
We will present a basic ontology of social action by examining the most important forms, with special focus on pro-social forms, in particular Goal Delegation and Goal Adoption. They are the basic ingredients of exchange, cooperation, group action, and organization. We will ground this in the mental representations (beliefs and goals) of the agent in a social (inter)action: the individual social mind. We need such an analytical account of social action to provide a good scientific conceptual apparatus for social theory. We will try to show why we need mind-reading and cognitive agents (and therefore why we have to characterize cognitive levels of coordination and social action); why we need goals about the mind of the other (in interaction and in collaboration), or ‘adhesion’ and social commitment to the other; why cognition, communication and agreement are not enough for modelling and implementing cooperation; why emergent pre- cognitive structures and constraints should be formalized, and why emergent cooperation is needed also among planning and deliberative social actors.
Through the Agents’ Minds: Cognitive Mediators of Social Action
“The most important fact concerning human interactions is that these events are psychologically represented in each of the participants” (Kurt Lewin, 1935) Abstract Thesis: Macro-level social phenomena are implemented through the (social) actions and minds of the individuals. Without an explicit theory of the agents’ minds that founds agents’ behaviour we cannot understand and explain macro-level social phenomena, and in particular how they work. We will apply this to: social cooperation and its forms; team work and organisation; social values; social norms; social functions. AntiThesis: Mind is not enough: the theory of individual (social) mind and action is not enough to understand and explain several macro-level social phenomena. First, there are pre-cognitive, objective social structures that constrain the actions of the agents independent of their awareness or decision; second, there are emergent, unaware or non-contractual forms of cooperation, organisation, and intelligence. We will apply this to: interference and dependence relations, interests, unplanned forms of cooperation, and to social functions. Synthesis: The real challenge is how to reconcile cognition with emergence, intention and deliberation with unknown or unplanned social functions and “social order”. Both objective structures and unplanned self-organising complex forms of social order and social function emerge from the interactions of agents in a common world and from their individual mental states; both these structures and self-organising systems feedback on agents’ behaviours through the agents’ individual minds either by their understanding the collective situation (cognitive emergence) or by constraining and conditioning agent goals and decisions. These feedbacks (from macro-emergent structures/systems) either reinforce or change the individual social behaviour producing either the dynamics or the self-reproduction of the macro-system. We will attempt to sketch some bridge-theories between micro and macro: - a theory of the relationship between external and internal goals in goal-governed systems; - a theory of cognitive and motivational autonomy; - a theory of social functions, which presupposes in turn: - a theory of unintended expected effects; - a theory of cognitive reinforcement learning in intentional agents.
Socio-Cultural Modeling through Decision-Theoretic Agents with Theory of Mind
PsychSim is an agent-based social simulation framework that captures a wide range of the individual and cultural differences exhibited in complex social scenarios. PsychSim takes a decision-theoretic approach to modeling Theory of Mind, giving its agents a rich space of beliefs and preferences. PsychSim also uses a unique piecewise linear representation language that allows it to reason backward from observed behavior to infer consistent parameter settings. We first applied PsychSim to the exploratory simulation of influence campaigns in the face of a heterogeneous socio-cultural arena of operations. More recently, we have used PsychSim in a range of simulation-based training systems designed to teach skills such as the correct use of language, gestures, and social norms of a foreign culture, cross-cultural negotiation, avoidance of risky behavior, and urban stabilization operations. Agent-based social simulations often seek to model socio-cultural behavior using simple models of individuals connected in large networks. However, human social and cultural behavior is also driven by complex, interrelated beliefs, attitudes and goals within individuals. A central factor in social interaction is the beliefs we have about each other, a Theory of Mind [14]. Our choice of action is influenced by how we believe others will feel and react. Whether we believe what we are told depends not only on the content of the communication but also on our model of the communicator. The central goal of this investigation is to bring such Theory of Mind capacities to the design of cross-cultural models of social interaction. Unfortunately, traditional artificial intelligence techniques are ill-suited for model-ing Theory of Mind. Representations using first-order logic are often insensitive to the distinctions among conflicting goals that people must balance in a social interaction. Resolving the ambiguity among equally possible, but unequally plausible or preferred,
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2013
I will first discuss how social interactions organize, coordinate, and specialize as "artifacts," tools; how these tools are not only for coordination but for achieving something, for some outcome (goal/function), for a collective work. In particular, I will argue that these artifacts specify (predict and prescribe) the mental contents of the participants, both in terms of beliefs and acceptances and in terms of motives and plans. We have to revise the behavioristic view of "scripts" and "roles"; when we play a role we wear a "mind." No collective action would be possible without shared and/or ascribed mental contents. This is also very crucial for a central form of automatic mind-reading (mind ascription). Second, I will argue that often what really matters is the ascribed/prescribed, worn, mind not the real, private one. We have to play (like in the symbolic play) "as if" we had those mental contents. This social convention and mutual assumption makes the interaction work. The ascribed beliefs and goals are not necessarily explicitly there; they might be just implicit as inactive (we act just by routine and automatically) or implicit as potential. The coordination and social action works thanks to these "as if" (ascribed and pretended) minds, thanks to those conventional constructs. Our social minds for social interactions are coordination artifacts and social institutions.
Modeling Agents with a Theory of Mind
2009 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, 2009
Training systems with intelligent virtual agents provide an effective means to train people for complex, dynamic tasks like crisis management or firefighting. Virtual agents provide more adequate behavior and explanations if they not only take their own goals and beliefs into account, but also the assumed knowledge and intentions of other players in the scenario. This paper describes a study to how agents can be equipped with a theory of mind, i.e. the capability to ascribe mental concepts to others. Based on existing theory of mind theories, a theory-theory (TT) and a simulation-theory (ST) approach for modeling agents with a theory of mind models are proposed. Both approaches have been implemented in a case study, and results show that the ST approach is preferred over the TT approach.
Groups as Agents with Mental Attitudes
2004
We discuss a model of cooperation among autonomous agents, based on the attribution of mental attitudes to groups: these attitudes represent the shared beliefs and objectives and the wish to reduce the costs for the members. When agents take a decision they have to recursively model what their partners are expected to do under the assumption that they are cooperative, and they have to adopt the goals and desires attributed to the group: otherwise, they are considered by the other members uncooperative and thus liable.
1998
Since the beginning of multiagent systems research, it has been argued that theories from the realm of the social sciences can be of help for building multiagent systems, and to some extent vice versa. This study sketches the concepts necessary for agents based on social theories. These theories include theories on decision making, various rationality and action models, and the role and modeling of other agents. The sociological debate on the micro-macro problem is analyzed and translated to multiagent research and combined with philosophical theories on sociality. The proposed agent typology is linked to the communication possiblities of the agents. This licentiate thesis also introduces research where these concepts have been applied in order to develop and test organization theories.