Abstract
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, non-rational 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 high-level, 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 start exploring this scenario introducing an agent-based framework for cognitive stigmergy based on artifacts. After discussing the main conceptual issues—the notion of cognitive stigmergy and the role of artifacts—, we sketch an abstract architecture for cognitive stigmergy, and outline its implementation upon the TuCS oN agent coordination infrastructure.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Grassé, P.-P.: La reconstruction du nid et les coordinations inter-individuelles chez bellicositermes natalensis et cubitermes sp. la theorie de la stigmergie: essai d’interpretation des termites constructeurs. Insectes Sociaux 6, 41–83 (1959)
Di Marzo Serugendo, G., Foukia, N., Hassas, S., Karageorgos, A., Mostéfaoui, S.K., Rana, O.F., Ulieru, M., Valckenaers, P., Van Aart, C.: Self-organisation: Paradigms and applications. In: Di Marzo Serugendo, G., Karageorgos, A., Rana, O.F., Zambonelli, F. (eds.) Engineering Self-Organising Systems. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2977, pp. 1–19. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Parunak, H.V.D., Brueckner, S., Sauter, J.: Digital pheromone mechanisms for coordination of unmanned vehicles. In: Castelfranchi, C., Johnson, W.L. (eds.) 1st International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2002), vol. 1, Bologna, Italy, pp. 449–450. ACM, New York (2002)
Valckenears, P., Van Brussel, H., Kollingbaum, M., Bochmann, O.: Multi-agent coordination and control using stigmergy applied to manufacturing control. In: Luck, M., Mařík, V., Štěpánková, O., Trappl, R. (eds.) ACAI 2001 and EASSS 2001. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2086, pp. 317–334. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
Mamei, M., Zambonelli, F., Leonardi, L.: Co-Fields: Towards a unifying approach to the engineering of swarm intelligent systems. In: Petta, P., Tolksdorf, R., Zambonelli, F. (eds.) ESAW 2002. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2577, pp. 68–81. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Susi, T., Ziemke, T.: Social cognition, artefacts, and stigmergy: A comparative analysis of theoretical frameworks for the understanding of artefact-mediated collaborative activity. Cognitive Systems Research 2(4), 273–290 (2001)
Schmidt, K., Wagner, I.: Ordering systems: Coordinative practices and artifacts in architectural design and planning. Computer Supported Cooperative Work 13(5-6), 349–408 (2004)
Viroli, M., Holvoet, T., Ricci, A., Schelfthout, K., Zambonelli, F.: Infrastructures for the environment of multiagent systems. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, Special Issue: Environment for Multi-Agent Systems 14(1), 49–60 (2007), http://doi.dx.org/10.1007/s10458-006-9001-6 , doi:10.1007/s10458-006-9001-6
Gambardella, L.M., Dorigo, M., Middendorf, M., Stützle, T.: Special section on ant colony optimization. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation 6(4), 317–365 (2002)
Holland, O., Melhuis, C.: Stigmergy, self-organization, and sorting in collective robotics. Artificial Life 5(2), 173–202 (1999)
Brueckner, S.A., Parunak, H.V.D.: Self-organizing MANET management. In: Di Marzo Serugendo, G., Karageorgos, A., Rana, O.F., Zambonelli, F. (eds.) Engineering Self-Organising Systems. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2977, pp. 20–35. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Mamei, M., Zambonelli, F.: Programming stigmergic coordination with the tota middleware. In: 4th ACM International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, July 2005, pp. 415–422. ACM Press, New York (2005)
Nardi, B.: Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human Computer Interaction. MIT Press, Cambridge (1996)
Hutchins, E.: Cognition in the Wild. MIT Press, Cambridge (1995)
Castelfranchi, C.: When doing is saying: implicit communication before and without language and gestures (Communication). In: International Workshop “Evolving Communication: From Action to Language”, Siena, Italy, 13–14 May (2004)
Omicini, A., Ricci, A., Viroli, M., Castelfranchi, C., Tummolini, L.: Coordination artifacts: Environment-based coordination for intelligent agents. In: Jennings, N.R., Sierra, C., Sonenberg, L., Tambe, M. (eds.) 3rd international Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AMAS 2004), pp. 286–293. ACM Press, New York (2004)
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia: Home page, http://www.wikipedia.org (2006)
Amazon: Home page, http://www.amazon.com (2006)
Ricci, A., Viroli, M., Omicini, A.: Programming MAS with artifacts. In: Bordini, R.H., Dastani, M., Dix, J., Seghrouchni, A.E.F. (eds.) Programming Multi-Agent Systems. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3862, pp. 206–221. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Omicini, A., Ricci, A., Viroli, M.: Agens F aber: Toward a theory of artefacts for MAS. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Sciences 150(3), 21–36 (2006), 1st International Workshop “Coordination and Organization” (CoOrg 2005), COORDINATION 2005, Namur, Belgium, 22 April 2005. Proceedings.
Omicini, A., Zambonelli, F.: Coordination for Internet application development. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 2(3), 251–269 (1999)
Omicini, A., Denti, E.: From tuple spaces to tuple centres. Science of Computer Programming 41(3), 277–294 (2001)
Denti, E., Natali, A., Omicini, A.: On the expressive power of a language for programming coordination media (Special Track on Coordination Models, Languages and Applications). In: 1998 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC’98), Atlanta, GA, USA, 27 Feb. – 1 March, pp. 169–177. ACM Press, New York (1998)
Di Marzo Serugendo, G., Karageorgos, A., Rana, O.F., Zambonelli, F. (eds.): Engineering Self-Organising Systems. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2977. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Ricci, A., Omicini, A., Viroli, M., Gardelli, L., Oliva, E. (2007). Cognitive Stigmergy: Towards a Framework Based on Agents and Artifacts. In: Weyns, D., Parunak, H.V.D., Michel, F. (eds) Environments for Multi-Agent Systems III. E4MAS 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4389. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-71103-2_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-71103-2_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-71102-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-71103-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)