Modeling Dynamic Decision-Making of Virtual Humans

Imagine a person visiting an urban event. At each moment in time, the person has to weigh up different possible actions and make consecutive decisions. For instance, a person might be hungry or thirsty and would therefore like to go somewhere to eat or to drink, or a person might need to go to the t...

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Main Author: Oliver Handel
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2016-01-01
Series:Systems
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/4/1/4
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author Oliver Handel
author_facet Oliver Handel
author_sort Oliver Handel
collection DOAJ
description Imagine a person visiting an urban event. At each moment in time, the person has to weigh up different possible actions and make consecutive decisions. For instance, a person might be hungry or thirsty and would therefore like to go somewhere to eat or to drink, or a person might need to go to the toilet and thus go searching for the restrooms. Other possible desires might be to go dancing or to have a rest due to exhaustion. All these examples can be seen in the context of dynamic decision-making. To be able to implement the dynamic decision-making of virtual humans living their lives in a persistent microworld, an advanced concept to solve this—in artificial intelligence research commonly called action selection problem—is required. This article focuses on an novel approach to model the activation of motivations—as an attempt to answer the recurring question of the virtual humans “What to do next?”. The novelty is to use System Dynamics, in general defined as a top-down simulation approach, from the bottom-up inside each instance of the agent population and to implement an action selection mechanism on the basis of this methodology. This approach enables us to model the dynamic decision-making of the virtual humans with stocks and flows resulting in nonlinear motivation evolution. A case study in the context of an urban event documents the application of this innovative method.
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spelling doaj.art-c6db9a0f98174519845cce86931c521a2022-12-22T04:24:17ZengMDPI AGSystems2079-89542016-01-0141410.3390/systems4010004systems4010004Modeling Dynamic Decision-Making of Virtual HumansOliver Handel0Department of Civil, Geo and Environmental Engineering, Technical University Munich, Arcisstr. 21, Munich D-80290, GermanyImagine a person visiting an urban event. At each moment in time, the person has to weigh up different possible actions and make consecutive decisions. For instance, a person might be hungry or thirsty and would therefore like to go somewhere to eat or to drink, or a person might need to go to the toilet and thus go searching for the restrooms. Other possible desires might be to go dancing or to have a rest due to exhaustion. All these examples can be seen in the context of dynamic decision-making. To be able to implement the dynamic decision-making of virtual humans living their lives in a persistent microworld, an advanced concept to solve this—in artificial intelligence research commonly called action selection problem—is required. This article focuses on an novel approach to model the activation of motivations—as an attempt to answer the recurring question of the virtual humans “What to do next?”. The novelty is to use System Dynamics, in general defined as a top-down simulation approach, from the bottom-up inside each instance of the agent population and to implement an action selection mechanism on the basis of this methodology. This approach enables us to model the dynamic decision-making of the virtual humans with stocks and flows resulting in nonlinear motivation evolution. A case study in the context of an urban event documents the application of this innovative method.http://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/4/1/4dynamic decision-makingaction selection problemdecision architecturehomeostasisagent-based-simulationsystem dynamicsurban event management
spellingShingle Oliver Handel
Modeling Dynamic Decision-Making of Virtual Humans
Systems
dynamic decision-making
action selection problem
decision architecture
homeostasis
agent-based-simulation
system dynamics
urban event management
title Modeling Dynamic Decision-Making of Virtual Humans
title_full Modeling Dynamic Decision-Making of Virtual Humans
title_fullStr Modeling Dynamic Decision-Making of Virtual Humans
title_full_unstemmed Modeling Dynamic Decision-Making of Virtual Humans
title_short Modeling Dynamic Decision-Making of Virtual Humans
title_sort modeling dynamic decision making of virtual humans
topic dynamic decision-making
action selection problem
decision architecture
homeostasis
agent-based-simulation
system dynamics
urban event management
url http://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/4/1/4
work_keys_str_mv AT oliverhandel modelingdynamicdecisionmakingofvirtualhumans