Mechanisms for Opponent Modelling

In various competitive game contexts, gathering information about one’s opponent and relying on it for planning a strategy has been the dominant approach for numerous researchers who deal with what in game theoretic terms is known as the best response problem. This approach is known as opponent modelling. The general idea is given a model of one’s adversary to rely on it for simulating the possible ways based on which a game may evolve, so as to then choose out of a number of response options the most suitable in relation to one’s goals. Similarly, many approaches concerned with strategising in the context of dialogue games rely on such models for implementing and employing strategies. In most cases though, the methodologies and the formal procedures based on which an opponent model may be built and updated receive little attention, as they are usually left implicit. In this paper we assume a general framework for argumentationbased persuasion dialogue, and we rely on a logical conception of arguments—based on the recent ASPIC+ model for argumentation—to formally define a number of mechanisms based on which an opponent model may be built, updated, and augmented. 1998 ACM Subject Classification I.2. Computing Methodologies Artificial Intelligence