Abstract
Computer simulation can be a complementary tool to study culture. A main issue in its application is finding the suitable computational primitives to translate the abstractions of social studies in a given context. Looking to overcome this problem, our research has developed a modelling framework based on the Activity Theory. This theory regards culture as a set of artefacts (mental and physical) that groups of people build and communicate in social activities, which are networks of interconnected individual activities. The framework provides a modelling language and its execution model, patterns (i.e. social properties), and processes to specify systems and check their properties. These elements reduce the uncertainty about modelling by crystallizing the experience of multiple projects. A case study about the influence of culture in couple relationships illustrates the approach. It shows how to model the emergence of new social artefacts when people deal with conflicts using existent cultural influences.
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Acknowledgements
This work has been done in the context of the project “Social Ambient Assisting Living – Methods (SociAAL)”, supported by Spanish Council for Economy and Competitiveness, with grant TIN2011-28335-C02-01. Also, we acknowledge support from the Programa de Creación y Consolidación de Grupos de Investigación GR35/10-A.
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Fuentes-Fernández, R., Gómez-Sanz, J.J., Pavón, J. (2014). Modelling Culture Through Social Activities. In: Dignum, V., Dignum, F. (eds) Perspectives on Culture and Agent-based Simulations. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01952-9_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01952-9_4
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