An Artificial Discourse Language for Collaborative Negotiation

Abstract

Collaborations to accomplish common goals necessitate negotiation to share and reach agreement on the beliefs that agents hold as part of the collaboration. Negotiation in communication can be simulated by a series of exchanges in which agents propose, reject, counterpropose or seek supporting information for beliefs they wish to be held mutually. In an artificial language of negotiation, messages display the state of the agents' beliefs. Dialogues consisting of such messages clarify the means by which agents come to agree or fail to agree on mutual beliefs and individual intentions. Introduction In human problem solving, agents often recognize that they share goals in common. To achieve their common goals, they plan and act jointly. These activities are collaborative processes. Collaboration requires negotiation, that is, the interactive process of attempting to agree on the goals, actions and beliefs that comprise the planning and acting decisions of the collaboration. This paper re...