3.1 The Set-up

3.1.3 Communication

Each agent can communicate with any of the others once a week, immediately before they all decide whether to go to the bar or not. The communication is determined by the evaluation of the talk expression and is usually either `true' or `false'. The presence of a quoting operator (quote) allows subtrees of the talk expression to be the content of the message. If a quote node is reached in the evaluation of the talk expression then the contents of the subtree are passed down verbatim rather than evaluated. If this is returned as the result of an evaluation of the talk expression then this is the message that is communicated.

The content of the messages can be used by agents by way of the saidBy and saidByLast nodes. The other agents can use the message in its evaluation of its expressions - the whole expression will be substituted instead of the saidBy (or saidByLast) node and evaluated as such. The agent can also use the output of its own messages.

Social Embeddedness and Agent Development - Bruce Edmonds - 30 OCT 98

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