2004 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT'04)
Narrative Structures for Multi-Agent Interaction
Beijing, China
September 20-September 24
ISBN: 0-7695-2101-0
Multi-agent interaction involves extended exchanges of asynchronous messages among the conversing agents and requires supporting technology in order to manage and keep track of the progress of the conversations. In this paper we outline our current work that extends our previous efforts in the area of improved agent interaction protocols by incorporating techniques inspired by narrativity analysis. We introduce in this context the notion of Narrative nets, a representation based on coloured Petri nets that models progress in the current narratively-based concerns of the communicating agent. The basic ideas behind Narrative nets are presented and an example system modelled after commodities trading is discussed.