Hybrid multi-agent system simulations: Cognitive and social agents

Simulating social and cognitive agent abilities is a very important aspect of agent-based computing. Multi-Agent Based Social Simulations (MABSS) could benefit from incorporating cognitive behaviours. A hybrid simulating approach, considering social and cognitive abilities, provides a more realistic basis for modelling agents and their social interactions. But, how social and cognitive behaviours could be supported simultaneously in MABSS? Is it always advantageous using cognitive capabilities into social simulations? This paper offers a set of general considerations about how cognitive capabilities could be integrated into social multi-agent simulations. It points out the most relevant cognitive requirements of social simulations of a great amount of real scenarios where some agents could carry out cognitive processing while others (a great majority) behave in reactive way. The suitability of several alternatives for integrating social and cognitive capabilities of agents are discussed. The paper also offers several efficiency related arguments and recommendations for using one of the three considered approaches.