Coupling Agent-Based Models and Argumentation Framework to Simulate Opinion Dynamics: Application to Vegetarian Diet Diffusion

Abstract

Agent-based simulation has been extensively used to studyopinion dynamics. However, the vast majority of the existing modelshave been limited to extremely abstract and simplified representationsof the diffusion process, which impairs the realism of the simulationsand disables the understanding of the reasons for the shift of an actor’sopinion. This paper presents a generic framework implemented in theGAMA platform allowing to explicitly represent exchanges of argumentsbetween actors in a context of an opinion dynamic model. More precisely,we propose to formalize the inner attitude towards an opinion of eachagent as an argumentation graph and give them the possibility to sharearguments with other agents. We present an application of the frameworkto study the evolution of the vegetarian diet at a city level.