People can communicate by using hand actions, e.g., signs. Understanding communicative actions requires that the observer knows that the actor has an intention to communicate and the meanings of the actions. Here, we investigated how this prior knowledge affects processing of observed actions. We used functional MRI to determine changes in action processing when non-signers were told that the o...

This paper considers the semantics of the agent communication language KQML. By using this language for communication, agents will be able to request and provide services. Indeed, numerous projects have shown how the language can profitably support interoperation among distributed agents. However, hefore becoming a widely-accepted standard, it would be worthwhile to examine the language in deta...

Explicit communication planning is an increasing necessity for agent systems. Furthermore, there has also been a renewed interest in using classical planning to perform this planning in addition to physical actions in a goal-directed way. Existing approaches, however, are not applicable to a broad spectrum of domains. We present several generic pre-processing strategies and adaptations of the F...

This paper considers the semantics of the agent communication language KQML. By using this language for communication, agents will be able to request and provide services. Indeed, numerous projects have shown how the language can prootably support in-teroperation among distributed agents. However, before becoming a widely-accepted standard, it would be worthwhile to examine the language in deta...

Predictive processes are crucial not only for interpreting the actions of individual agents, but also to predict how, in the context of a social interaction between two agents, the actions of one agent relate to the actions of a second agent. In the present study we investigated whether, in the context of a communicative interaction between two agents, observers can use the actions of one agent...

We know a great deal about the neurophysiological mechanisms supporting instrumental actions, i.e., actions designed to alter the physical state of the environment. In contrast, little is known about our ability to select communicative actions, i.e., actions directly designed to modify the mental state of another agent. We have recently provided novel empirical evidence for a mechanism in which...

1 This paper presents a tripartite model of dialogue in which three different kinds of actions are modeled: domain actions, problem-solving actions, and discourse or communicative actions. We contend that our process model provides a more finely differentiated representation of user intentions than previous models; enables the incremental recognition of communicative actions that cannot be reco...

This study was conducted to examine interpersonal predictive coding in individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA). Healthy and HFA participants observed point-light displays of two agents (A and B) performing separate actions. In the 'communicative' condition, the action performed by agent B responded to a communicative gesture performed by agent A. In the 'individual' condition, agent A's ...

BACKGROUND In the context of interacting activities requiring close-body contact such as fighting or dancing, the actions of one agent can be used to predict the actions of the second agent. In the present study, we investigated whether interpersonal predictive coding extends to interactive activities--such as communicative interactions--in which no physical contingency is implied between the m...