SecondLife® as an evaluation platform for multiagent systems featuring social interactions

In this paper we propose to use SecondLife® as an evaluation environment for multiagent systems that model social group dynamics and social interactions. To this end we developed a control interface for NPCs in SecondLife® that allows for running supervised or unsupervised long-term evaluations. Thus, this platform offers the possibility to move evaluation studies from the laboratory into a "natural" setting for the participants. First tests show the potential for this kind of evaluation.