Negotiation as Mutual Belief Revision

This paper presents a logical framework for negotiation based on belief revision theory. We consider that a negotiation process is a course or multiple courses of mutual belief revision. A set of AGM-style postulates are proposed to capture the rationality of competitive and cooperative behaviors of negotiation. We first show that the AGM revision and its iterated extension is a special case of negotiation function. Then we show that a negotiation function can be constructed by two related iterated belief revision functions under a certain coordination mechanism. This provides a qualitative method for constructing negotiation space and rational concessions. It also shows a glimpse of how to express game-theoretical concepts in logical framework.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: AAAI
• Authors: Dongmo Zhang, Norman Y. Foo, Thomas Andreas Meyer, Rex Kwok
• Keywords: AAAI 2004, Belief Revision, Intelligent Agents, Negotiation, Negotiation Function