Attitude Cycle for Problem Solving Teams in A Dynamic World

In this paper, a mental attribute called attitude is introduced and its importance in agent problem solving is discussed. It also presents the various properties of agents describing how the attitudes of the agents affect the behaviour of the agents. The paper also discusses how the attitudes could be described computationally in terms of various attributes. This paper formalises the team as a collective abstract attitude of participating agents. This concept especially has been very useful in formalising the behaviour of complex teams. The team model grounds the team attitude as the individual attitude of its member agents, which in turn is further divided into the attitudes and behaviours towards the various team attributes. In this paper a team problem solving methodology is also presented, which has the notion attitude and team cycle as its core to allow robust and coherent team behaviour. According to this cycle of problem solving, the team undergoes through the steps of attitude and team formation, attitude and team maintenance and attitude and team dissolution. It also shows how these various attitudes ultimately result into various team behaviours in a fire world. The application and implementation of this methodology to a virtual firefighting domain has revealed a promising prospect in developing problem solving team agents.