[ACT-R-users] References on ACT-R and multi-agent modeling

[Dan Bothell]

--On Tuesday, April 22, 2008 4:20 PM -0500 Srikanth <mppsrikanth at gmail.com> wrote:

> Greetings,
> I am seeking to use the ACT-R framework for modeling multiple agents that collaborate on a task.
> I am a novice when it comes to the ACT-R framework and only somewhat more familiar with LISP.  I
> have searched through the past posts to this list and could find only one reference:
>
> Kim, S.-Y., Lodge, M., & Taber, C. (2004). A computational model of voter- The dynamics of
> political candidate evaluation. In Proceedings of the sixth International Conference on Cognitive
> Modeling (pp. 362-363). Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University/University of Pittsburgh.
>
> However, the paper does not discuss any details of the implementation except for a mention of
> 'use of sockets'. Any pointers regarding papers/tutorials that illustrate how ACT-R can be used
> for developing a multi-agent model would be greatly appreciated.
>

The first suggestion I have is to work through the ACT-R tutorial
units and become more familiar with how to use the system.  There
aren't any multi-model examples in the tutorial, but the basic
commands and operation of the system are the same regardless of
whether there's one model or multiples.

As far as multi-agent systems go, there isn't really a strong
reference I can suggest.  One of the biggest issues is how
the experiment/environment in which the models will operate
works.  That can vary from something which you write yourself
in Lisp to some external simulation system which has a specific
API to which you have to connect.  So, there can be a wide
variety of issues to deal with and there isn't one solution which
fits all cases.

That said, ACT-R 6 supports running multiple models both
synchronously (running on the same clock) and asynchronously
(each with its own clock) "out of the box".  There's nothing
additional needed to run multiple models.  There are two very
simple examples of running multiple models in the examples
directory of the ACT-R files.  Both examples show all three
models from unit 1 of the tutorial running together.  The file
unit-1-together-1-mp.cl shows the models running synchronously
and the file unit-1-together-3-mp.cl sets them up to run
asynchronously.

The reference manual doesn't yet have a section on working
with multiple models.  However, the older framework-API document
does cover some of the commands, like with-model and with-meta-
process, which can help with running and debugging multi-model
situations.

Hope that helps, and if you have more questions or issues
feel free to ask.

Dan