Swarming Models for Facilitating Collaborative Decisions

Authors

  • Constantin-Bala Zamfirescu Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Computer Science and Automatic Control Romania, 69121 Sibiu, 17 Emil Cioran
  • Florin Gheorghe Filip 1. Romanian Academy - INCE and BAR Romania, 010071 Bucharest, 125 Calea Victoriei, and 2. Nat. Institute for Informatics -ICI Romania, 011455 Bucharest, 8-10 B-dul Maresal Al. Averescu

Keywords:

collaborative working environments, group decision support systems, facilitation, social simulation, stigmergy, swarming models of computation

Abstract

The paper highlights the computational power of swarming models (i.e., stigmergic mechanisms) to build collaborative support systems for complex cognitive tasks such as facilitation of group decision processes (GDP) in e-meetings. Unlike traditional approaches that minimize the cognitive complexity by incorporating the facilitation knowledge into the system, stigmergic coordination mechanisms minimize the complexity by providing the system with emergent functionalities that are shaped by the environment itself through the possibility to structure it in terms of high-level cognitive artefacts. This is illustrated by conducting a socio-simulation experiment for an envisioned collaborative software tool that acts as a stigmergic environment for modelling the GDP. The results show superior results when the users are allowed to increase the representational complexity of a GDP model with cognitive artefacts that support guidance and action in the conceptual problem space.

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Published

2010-03-01

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