Group Persuasion through Uncertain Audience Modelling

In this paper we examine the problem of practical reasoning utilising Atkinson et al.’s argument scheme in situations where differences as to the desirability of social value promotion exists. We focus on the situation where a single speaker attempts to persuade a set of listeners to undertake an action, assuming that the speaker has only a probabilistic model of the listener’s mental state. To achieve this, we provide a new mapping from Atkinson’s argumentation scheme to a VAF, introducing a new epistemic level to the VAF. We then present a simple protocol for the interaction between a single speaker and the set of listeners. Finally, situations in which strategic reasoning is necessary for the speaker are identified.