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Related Experiment Videos

Herd Those Sheep: Emergent Multiagent Coordination and Behavioral-Mode Switching.

Patrick Nalepka1, Rachel W Kallen1, Anthony Chemero1

  • 11 Center for Cognition, Action & Perception, University of Cincinnati.

Psychological Science
|April 5, 2017
PubMed
Summary

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Coordinating behaviors is key for multiagent tasks. Pairs in a virtual shepherding game evolved from separate strategies to synchronized oscillations for better sheep herding.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Behavioral Dynamics
  • Complex Systems

Background:

  • Effective coordination is crucial for multiagent activities.
  • Growing interest in behavioral synchrony and complex systems phenomena drives research into dynamical principles of coordination.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To examine the behavioral dynamics of a novel multiagent shepherding task.
  • To understand how pairs coordinate their actions to corral virtual sheep.

Main Methods:

  • A novel, multiagent shepherding task with virtual sheep and game field.
  • Observation and analysis of behavioral coordination modes over game play.
  • Modeling to reveal underlying dynamics of discovered behaviors.

Main Results:

Keywords:
complex systemsdynamical modelingjoint actionmultiagent systemsopen datasocial coordinationtask dynamics

Related Experiment Videos

  • Pairs initially used a complementary, search-and-recover coordination mode.
  • A significant number of pairs spontaneously adopted a more effective coupled oscillatory containment mode.
  • Both coordination modes were defined by task dynamics and reflected general functional shepherding principles.

Conclusions:

  • Behavioral coordination in multiagent tasks can evolve spontaneously to more effective strategies.
  • The dynamics of coordination are context-specific yet adhere to general principles.
  • This study provides insights into the lawful dynamics governing functional multiagent behavior.