Exploring behavioral regions in agents’ mental maps

Paul M. Torrens ()
Additional contact information
Paul M. Torrens: University of Maryland

The Annals of Regional Science, 2016, vol. 57, issue 2, No 3, 309-334

Abstract: Abstract Agent-based models continue to grow more sophisticated at the individual scale of regional science inquiry, but it remains difficult to ally the intricacies of individual behavior in those models to regional phenomena and processes in anything but a loose fashion, leaving explanatory pathways between the scales quite slack. In this paper, we present a mechanism for bridging the gap between individual agency and regional outcomes of that agency in simulation. We use agents to develop very rich behavioral understanding of their surroundings in simulation. We then sweep through the information that agents generate when determining how to execute their transition rules, using schemes that mine agent states to produce mental maps of varied aspects of their dynamics. From agents’ mental maps, we define and visualize regions as geographies that are conjured from the unique, autonomous, local, and personal insight that agents can provide. We demonstrate the utility of the scheme, with application to indoor movement scenarios in which fleeting regions form amid agents interactions with each other and their built surroundings. Our approach is extensible beyond these applications and could be of broader use for other explorative scenarios in regional science.

JEL-codes: C63 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00168-015-0682-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:anresc:v:57:y:2016:i:2:d:10.1007_s00168-015-0682-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://link.springer.com/journal/168

DOI: 10.1007/s00168-015-0682-0

Access Statistics for this article

The Annals of Regional Science is currently edited by Martin Andersson, E. Kim and Janet E. Kohlhase

More articles in The Annals of Regional Science from Springer, Western Regional Science Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().