An empirical model of communication in multiagent systems

This paper proposes a new model of communication in multiagent systems according to which the semantics of communication depends on their pragmatics. Since these pragmatics are seen to result from the consequences of communicative actions as these have been empirically observed by a particular agent in the past, the model is radically empirical, consequentialist and constructivist. A formal framework for analysing such evolving semantics is defined, and we present an extensive analysis of several properties of different interaction processes based on our model. Among the main advantages of this model over traditional ACL semantics frameworks is that it allows agents to reason about the effects of their communicative behaviour on the structure of communicative expectations as a whole when making strategic decisions. Also, it leads to a very interesting domain-independent and non-mentalistic notion of conflict.