8 Appendix - Technical details of the extended `El Farol Bar' model outlined in section 4
The content of the messages can be used by agents via saidBy and saidByLast nodes in the action and talk expressions. If the message is just composed of a boolean value then the saidBy node is just evaluated as this value, but if it is a more complex expression (as a result of a quote node in the sending agents talk expression) then the whole expression will be substituted instead of the saidBy (or saidByLast) node and evaluated as such. The agent can use the output of its own messages by use of other nodes (IPredictedLastWeek and ISaidYesterDay).
The agents are limited in those from whom they can `listen to', in the sense that at the beginning of the run an arbitrary `friendship structure' (as in) is imposed and agents can only use saidBy (or saidByLast) nodes referring to agents who are their friends in their models.
In this model `social imitation' is also enabled. this means that other agents can introduce the content of any message (which is not a mere boolean value) into their own (action) model pool, this would correspond to agents taking the message as a suggestion for an expression to determine their own action. In subsequent generation this expression can be crossed with other expressions in its population of constructs so that its content is mixed in with other action models of that agent. Note that social imitation does not incorporate the content of such messages into the models that determine what is said by each agent.
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