Decision Making: A Cognitive Function Approach

This paper presents a cognitive function approach to decision-making. Traditional approaches are usually based on single-agent models that typically attempt to capture sequential information processing. They are limited to the account of cognitive functions such as observation, interpretation, planning and action execution. Multi-agent models enable the capture of both sequential and parallel information processing. From this perspective, cognitive functions are extended to interactive supervision, cooperation, coordination, negotiation and delegation. An agent is typically conceived as a society of other agents. Since a natural decision made by an agent results from the combination of mini-decisions made by other agents whether those are intrinsic or extrinsic to the agent, an extended theory of cognitive functions is required. This is what this paper is about. Examples are provided from the aeronautics domain.