Collaborative Research: Decision-making in Collaborative Activities

在过去的十年中，计算机系统越来越多地成为复杂的、分布式的社区的参与者，包括人和计算机系统，而不是个人使用的设备。这一重大转变给计算机科学带来了重大挑战：确定构建能够作为团队成员有效行动的计算机系统的方法。尽管许多当前的计算机系统具有作为个体参与者的复杂能力，但大多数计算机系统缺乏作为协作组成员成功工作所需的能力。这一建议解决了这一挑战的核心问题。重点为能够处理多智能体、动态团队环境的软件代理决策组件的设计提供基础。本研究包括三个方面的内容：(1)实证调查，包括考察对个人和群体行为的影响，以及在协作环境中产生适当帮助行为和管理群体活动承诺的政策和机制的结果；(2)发展可用于解决这些机制抽象问题的形式理论；(3)构建更复杂的具有协同能力的软件代理。该研究将有助于开发具有协作能力的软件代理和协作人机界面系统，因此，将显著提高人员和软件系统代理组成的异构团队的有效性。

In the last decade, computer systems have increasingly become participants in complex, distributed communities comprising people and computer systems, rather than devices used by individuals. This major shift engenders a significant challenge for computer science: to determine ways to construct computer systems able to act effectively as team members. Although many current computer systems have sophisticated capabilities as individual actors, most lack capabilities required for working successfully as members of a collaborative group. This proposal addresses problems central to this challenge. It focuses on providing the foundation for the design of decision-making components of software agents that can handle multi-agent, dynamic team contexts. The proposed research comprises three activities: (1) empirical investigations, including examination of the influence on individual and group behavior and outcomes of policies and mechanisms for producing appropriately helpful behavior in collaborative settings and forgoverning commitment to group activities; (2) development of formal theories that may be used to address abstractly questions of these mechanisms; and (3) construction of more sophisticatedcollaboration-capable software agents. The research will contribute to the development of collaboration-capable software agents and collaborative human-computer interface systems, and,thus, will significantly increase the effectiveness of heterogeneous teams of people and software-systems agents.