Combining Theory of Mind and Abduction for Cooperation under Imperfect Information

Abstract

In this paper, we formalise and implement an agent model for cooperation under imperfect information. It is based on Theory of Mind (the cognitive ability to understand the mental state of others) and abductive reasoning (the inference paradigm that computes explanations from observations). The combination of these two techniques allows agents to derive the motives behind the actions of their peers, and incorporate this knowledge into their own decision-making. We have implemented this model in a totally domain-independent fashion and successfully tested it for the cooperative card game Hanabi.