Cognitive Stigmergy: Towards a Framework Based on Agents and Artifacts

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, nonrational 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 highlevel, 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 s...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: E4MAS
• Authors: Alessandro Ricci, Andrea Omicini, Mirko Viroli, Luca Gardelli, Enrico Oliva
• Keywords: Cognitive Stigmergy, E4MAS 2006, Emergent Coordination, Enable Emergent Coordination, Intelligent Agents