Technical Report: DCC-2007-04

Formal modelling of Emotions in BDI Agents

David Pereira, Nelma Moreira

DCC-FC & LIACC, Universidade do Porto
R. do Campo Alegre 1021/1055 , 4169-007 Porto, Portugal
Phone: +351 220402920 , Fax: 351 22 402 950
E-mail: {dpereira,nam}@ncc.up.pt

and

Eugénio Oliveira

DEEC-FEUP & LIACC, Universidade do Porto
Rua Dr.Roberto Frias, 4200-465 PORTO, PORTUGAL
Phone: + 351 22 508 1829
E-mail: eco@fe.up.pt
June 2007

Abstract

Emotional-BDI agents are BDI agents whose behaviour is guided not only by beliefs, desires and intentions, but also by the role of emotions in reasoning and decision-making. The EBDI logic is a formal system for expressing the concepts of the Emotional-BDI model of agency. In this paper we present an improved version of the EBDI logic and show how it can be used to model the role of three emotions in Emotional-BDI agents: fear, anxiety and self-confidence. We also focus in the computational properties of EBDI which can lead to its use in automated proof systems.