SOLACE a multi-agent model of human behaviour driven by social attachment during seismic crisis

Abstract

Human behaviour during crisis is social in nature. Affiliation, activated by threat, results in individuals seeking the proximity of attachment figures (i.e. family members, friends, colleagues, strangers, social groups, familiar places, and objects). This affects the actions, directions, and speeds adopted by individuals seeking safe areas. This paper presents SOLACE, a multi-agent model of human behaviour during seismic crisis based on social attachment theory. SOLACE is an attempt to show the effect of social attachment on the number of victims, and the time that it takes, to reach a safe area; this increases the realism in evacuation modelling. Real-geographic data are used to define the spatial context of the crisis environment, delimit mobility with barriers (e.g. buildings, debris), and constrain movement to freespace. A belief, desire, and intention (BDI) approach was adopted to integrate social bonds in human agent interaction and mobility. Initial results include realism in: (1) the synthetic crisis environment indicated by a power law distribution of earthquake effects: (a) intensities on buildings and shaking felt by human agents, and (b) evacuation delay, (2) agent movement and interaction (e.g. parent with child) influencing speed of evacuation.