Helmhout Martin. The Social Cognitive Actor: A Mullti-actor Simulation of Organisations

Publisher : Labyrint Publications. 2006. ISBN-10:
9053351000. ISBN-13:
9789053351000. (328 pages).
Introduction - Multi-Agent Systems - The Social Actor - The Cognitive Actor - RBot: Architecture and Design - Demonstrative experiments with RBot and MRS - Discussion and Conclusions.The dissertation that is in your hands is the fruit of the last four years of research done in the field of Multi-Agent Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Informatics, Cognitive Science, Social Science and Organisation Studies. Bringing together different disciplines has been a challenging and a complex task. The outcome, put together in a simulation model, will hopefully help others discover new
ways of practising the art of cognitive and social modelling.
My background as a mechanical engineer may not seem to be in line with the research that I am currently involved in. Indeed, constructs of the philosophy of the mind, social construction, multi-actor software programs, and social behavior seem to differ, in essence, from mechanical engineering.
However, this dissertation focuses on the process of construction as in mechanics. Only this time, the focus is on social construction. It is probably the topic of social construction that (re-)constructed my thoughts about the (social) world we live in.
MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS (MAS) is a field of research that is concerned with the design, analysis and implementation of computational decision and simulation systems - a collection of agents that work in conjunction with each other - to enhance one's understanding of how people cooperate and coordinate their actions to solve problems.