Crowd Behavior Cognitive Model Architecture Design

Quynh-Anh (Mimi) H. Nguyen

Frederic(Rick) D. McKenzie, PhD
Mikel D. Petty, PhD
Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA. 23529
757.686.6200, 757.683.6367
qhnguyen@odu.edu, fmckenzi@ece.odu.edu, mpetty@odu.edu

Keywords:
Crowd behavior, cognitive model architecture, game technology

ABSTRACT: Our United States military is increasingly engaged in urban combat or peace-keeping
missions. As a result, soldiers are also increasingly engaged with the civilian non-combatant inhabitants of
various nations. Yet, current military simulation models have little or no representation of these effects
which can lead to suboptimal training or experimentation results. More realistic and sophisticated crowd
models are desired to address this growing need.

It is unlikely that one crowd model will meet all our militarys crowd requirements since models are needed
with a variety of behaviors depending upon the type of mission, the size of encounters, and the user
application. A federate that may be used to provide such variety of civilian behaviors in a crowd context
would need to be flexible, configurable, and extensible. In this paper, we report about one such
instantiation and the framework and cognitive model that support it. The framework is a layered
architecture that is composed of a physical layer in which movements and other actions of the crowd are
manifested; and also a cognitive layer in which the motivations of these activities are generated and
propagated. Connecting these two layers is an API layer that provides mapping and communication
services for the stimuli, activities, and accompanying parameters that are crowd behavior centric. We focus
especially on the details about the cognitive model architecture (CMA) and the design process used to
achieve it.

1 INTRODUCTION potential for shooting innocent civilians, or being

Crowds of non-combatants play a large and increasingly
recognized role in modern military operations, and often
create substantial difficulties for the combatant forces
involved.
In Somalia, U. S. Marines often faced hostile
crowds of rock-throwing women and children.
In Bosnia, U. S. Army soldiers had to disperse
angry mobs of Serb hard-liners near the town of
Banja Luka. More recently, Danish, French, and
Italian forces attempted to control riots between
ethnic Albanians and Serbs in Mitrovice,
Albania. [1]
All military operations, large or small, have a
crowd control/crowd confusion factor.
[C]rowds are one of the worst situations you can
encounter. There is mass confusion; loss of
control and communication with subordinates;
shot at by hostiles in the crowd; potential for an
incident at the tactical level to influence
operations and policy at the strategic level. [2]
In spite of the military challenges and risks imposed by
crowds, models of crowds are essentially absent from
current production military simulations. This omission
has been understandable in the context of legacy
simulations that were historically focused on large-scale
engagements between heavy mechanized forces in
primarily non-urban settings. However, in the last decade
the threat has changed and future engagements are
expected to often involve lighter forces in urban settings.
In simulations of such scenarios the absence of crowds
and of non-combatants in general is a more serious
departure from realism. The absence of models of crowds
in military simulation, and the need to include them, has
been widely recognized.
 Military forces are increasingly called upon to
support operations other than war in which they
come into contact with civilian populations. In
some cases, the interaction takes place with
crowds of civilians. Unfortunately, the computer
generated forces that support virtual training
systems do not yet support the simulation of
crowds of civilians. [3]
Representations are needed for (neutrals or
civilians) to represent operations other than war
and the interactions among these forces. [4].
VMASC is engaged in a project aimed at developing a
crowd modeling capability for military simulation. The
project consisted of a number of phases: a requirements
analysis to identify military simulation crowd modeling
requirements; a literature survey to examine
psychological research relevant to crowd modeling; a
design study to explore design issues in the
implementation of a crowd simulation; and the
development of a crowd simulation, implemented as a
distributed simulation federate, that will be interoperable
with existing military simulations and will have a credible
psychological basis for the crowd behavior it generates.
These phases have been described in past publications in
varying levels of detail [5] [6].
Although the goals of the current VMASC project is not
to create a predictive model of crowd behavior, we are
focused on developing a suitable cognitive model
architecture that is capable of incorporating the latest
psychologically research to produce credible crowd
responses. This paper focuses on this task of developing
the psychologically-based cognitive model architecture.
The psychological research used as the basis for our
computational model of crowd behavior may be found in
previous papers [7][8].
2 DESIGN PROCESS AND GOALS
The design process started with an investigative software
development process to initially create an exploratory
prototype of the Crowd Behavior cognitive model
architecture (CMA). The goals of developing this
prototype were twofold. Firstly, the process of designing
and implementing the exploratory prototype would allow
us to elaborate the requirements of a crowd behavior
cognitive model. Secondly, we would gain an
understanding of how to bridge the gap between the
psychological research and a computational model of
crowd behavior.
After developing the exploratory prototype, we developed
an experimentation prototype that could be utilized for
running experiments to examine the level of crowd
behavior fidelity needed within the context of military
simulations and to allow iterative refinement of the
requirements for the crowd behavior CMA. These initial
CMA prototypes were developed and incorporated into
the crowd federate and may be extended as additional
capabilities are needed.
3 THE CROWD MODEL
As documented in [9], our crowd model has two main
layers, the cognitive model (CM) layer and the physical
model (PM) layer, which communicates with each other
through a crowd behavior API. Each layer is responsible
for modeling different aspects of the crowd model. The
CM layer is responsible for modeling the mind for the
crowd. In the simplest sense, the cognitive model will
receive stimuli from the physical model, process the
stimuli, and select a behavior to send back to the physical
model to carry out. Therefore, the PM acts as the body
of the crowd and is responsible for accepting behaviors as
input, carrying out those behaviors, and then outputting
stimuli to the cognitive model. If we view the CM, PM,
and crowd behavior API as black boxes, we have a very
simple interface between the components as depicted by
Figure 1.
Figure 1: The Simplified Crowd Model
As simplistic as this information interchange may seem at
first glance, it soon became evident that it was not so easy
to create. We had to carefully consider and define what is
meant by a stimulus and what is meant by a behavior. As
one starts to delve into defining these terms, it becomes
clear that trying to define these terms in an unambiguous
way is difficult. This becomes even more difficult as we
try to abstract away from the individual level and define
these in terms of groups and crowds. In this section, we
attempt to define these terms in a way that fits in well
with our crowd federate architecture, utilizing the crowd
behavior API to handle any disconnects.
3.1 Stimuli Some examples of sensory, state change and event stimuli
that might be of interest in a crowd federate have been
We define stimuli as anything that may elicit a response identified in Table 1. It is important to note that an
from the crowd behavior cognitive model. Using this assumption is made that sensors will filter and provide
definition, we have identified three types of stimuli that a particular stimulus. For example, real people may have
could be exchanged between the CM and the PM. These a vision sensor, such as their eyes, which can see
are sensory, state change, and event stimuli. A sensory everything around them and provide preprocessed data
stimulus could be thought of as a product of the to their brain for further processing. Likewise, in the
continuous excitation of a characters sensors, such as physical model, the assumption is that there will be a
vision, audio, etc., that produces a definitive type of particular sensor to look for particular objects, such as
information being obtained about the world, such as vision sensors to look for the nearest person who is a
distance to nearest character of interest, nearest character member of the soldier group and other such items of
of interest, etc. A state change stimulus could be interest.
considered a world knowledge type of stimuli and could
Stimuli known to one particular CM is associated with
be any modifications in the crowd situation, such as a
stimuli generated from within a given PM by the mapping
change in the crowd, group, and/or individual parameters,
data accessed by the Crowd Behavior API. An important
which in turn could elicit a response from the crowd. For
artifact to note is that although we may want to assume
example, if the leader is shot or runs away, this could
that there is a straight one-to-one mapping between the set
cause the leadership structure crowd/group parameter to
of stimuli that the CM can process and the set of stimuli
change from highly organized to disorganized. Event
that the PM can produce, this may not necessarily be the
stimuli are used to capture non-reoccurring, infrequent
case. There could also be a disconnection between the set
discrete events that might transpire, such as hearing an
of behaviors selectable and realizable between the CM
explosion or gunfire, or seeing someone near them shot,
and the PM. Therefore, this disconnection may cause
or feeling themselves be hit by others in the crowd.
some stimuli not to be processed and/or some behavior
STIMULI not to be realized. Although the mapping data can be
Sensory Event State change configured to account for appropriate substitutes, this
See nearest See burning tire Leader is shot
should always be taken into account when plugging-n-
member of Hear gunfire Leader runs away
the control Hear explosion Lose ability to playing different cognitive models with different physical
force See/smell gaseous communicate models.
See nearest substance amongst crowd
friend See crashing helicopter members
See nearest
3.2 Behaviors
See/hear firefight Appearance/actions
member of a See someone near you of organized agitator
group self is get shot group We define a behavior as the desired response to
sympathetic See someone near you Crowd members stimulation from the environment of the individual,
to hit fleeing
Sense Members joining the
group, or crowd. So, what constitutes a behavior as it
Get hit by others in
distance to crowd crowd exists between the physical model and the cognitive
above three Get hit by a member of model? At what level should a behavior be defined?
Hear the control force
chanting See downdraft of
Hear militia helicopter
broadcasting See militia
on demonstrating weapons
megaphones See militia loading
weapons

Table 1: Supported Stimuli

The cognitive model would be responsible for accepting
stimuli as input and selecting and outputting an
appropriate behavior response to the physical model. In
turn, the physical model would be responsible for
modeling the necessary sensors to detect the stimuli and
sending them to the cognitive model. It is also
responsible for providing a repertoire of behaviors that
can be realized by that physical model. Figure 2: Behavior Hierarchy
As can be seen in Figure 2, we find that behaviors could This section describes the initial design and
be considered hierarchical in that it can be realized in the implementation of our crowd behavior cognitive model
physical model by combining some set of simple actions architecture as it was applied for the first set of fidelity
and simple animations as well as lower-level behaviors, level requirement experiments [11].
which in themselves can also made up of simple actions
and animations. They can be composed of any 4.1 Bridging the Gap
combination of actions and animations to achieve a
desired effect. For example, if we wanted to perform the There are many current research efforts being conducted
simple behavior of standing still, this would entail both these days that requires the use of a sound,
an action and an animation to achieve. In particular, it psychologically based crowd model. The focus of our
would require initiating a maintain speed = 0 action and studies has been non-combatant crowds that interact with
activating a stand still animation. US military operations. The intended uses of these
models vary from needing to understand how crowds
3.2.1 Repertoire of Behaviors respond to non-lethal weapons, how to influence and
direct the behavior of potentially hostile crowds, how to
The repertoire of behaviors that we initially identified for
bring a mob situation under control, etc. The problem
the crowd model was based on examining the necessary
that we have encountered has been that psychologists and
behaviors to support the reference scenarios [10] selected
sociologists are still trying to refine their understanding
to test our crowd federate. In particular, our prototype
about individual human behavior, making it that much
was developed to support the Mogadishu scenario. The
more difficult in understanding crowds, crowd behavior,
table below shows a mapping of an aspect of the crowds
and how individuals behave in crowd situations [12].
mental state, captured by an aggression level variable, to
possible crowd behaviors. The bolded behaviors are Much research has been conducted on human behavior
those that have been identified as high-priority, or models that focus on individual autonomous human
necessary, for the Mogadishu scenarios. The behaviors agents. Fewer models have addressed group or crowd
marked w/ the * are those currently supported in the behavior. Crowd behavior models in the literature range
prototype. from purely physical representations to purely cognitive
representations and combinations of both have been
AGGRESSION
LEVEL
BEHAVIOR successful to varying degrees in the domain to which they
Neutral Wandering* were intended. Motivations range from improving
Avoidance Fleeing* graphical rendering performance to providing realistic
Hiding behavior representations with emotions and other drivers.
Curious non- Hanging out/watching*
aggressive posture Standing/climbing on elevated structures Crowd models include particle systems [13], flocking
Seeking to burning tire/smoke* systems [14], or behavioral systems [15] -- the difference
Chanting/flag waving being an increasing level of interaction among
Aggressive posture Swarming toward helicopter*
Burning tires
participants in the crowd and with the environment in
Building barricade general. Along with increased interaction comes
Taunting/yelling increased attention to modeling the social and emotional
Carrying sticks/raising firearms
interactions among crowd members.
Aggressive non-lethal Throwing rocks/projectiles*
actions Pushing/shoving A recurring theme throughout the literature is the
Hand-to-hand fighting
Dragging bodies through streets necessity to model behavior either at the individual level
Violent lethal actions Shooting* and allow crowd behavior to emerge as a result of many
Firing RPGs goal-oriented individuals within the same location or at a
Throwing molotov cocktails
Driving technicos (civilian vehicles w/
crowd level where the behavior of the crowd may be
mounted machine-guns) completely controlled by a crowd entity. Again, there is a
Table 2: Aggression Level to Behavior Mapping range of efforts between these two extremes. The
psychology of crowds is not fully understood and is
4 THE COGNITIVE MODEL DESIGN constantly evolving. There is no psychological or
sociological model of crowds in existence today that has
As mentioned earlier, the cognitive model has two main been universally accepted and validated.
responsibilitiesto receive stimuli from the physical As the development of the cognitive model progressed, it
model and to select and send behavior commands back to became clear that there was still much to be learned when
the physical model as a response to the received stimuli. it came to understanding crowds and crowd behavior. We
realized that there would be significant effort required in 4.3 The Cognitive Model Architecture
bridging the gap between the psychology of crowd
behavior and the simulation of crowd behavior.

4.2 Design Decisions

In the pursuit of developing both the psychological and

computational models for crowd behavior and in the
analysis and considerations of established research, we
have made several design decisions of import. These
decisions are detailed below:
We are incorporating Musse & Thalmanns [16] [17]
concept of a crowd hierarchy. There will be crowds,
groups, and individuals. Crowds are made up of
groups and groups are made up of individuals. A
group can be made up of only one individual, but a
crowd has to be made up of two or more groups.
Our architecture is focused at the group and crowd
levels. We are using the crowd parameters identified
during the Crowd Modeling Workshops being
conducted by Brooks Air Force Base in support of
the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorates
(JNLWD) goals of understanding crowds and crowd
control. Since the crowd model is focused at the
group and crowd levels, we do not need to apply any
of the individual cognitive models and approaches Figure 3: Crowd Cognitive Model Architecture Prototype
available such as SOAR, ACT-R, BDI, etc.
After multiple meetings between the cognitive model
Our premise is that you can get realistic crowd
implementation and psychological teams, an initial crowd
behavior without needing to model the cognitive
behavior model was produced. Figure 3 depicts the
processes of all of the individuals. In fact, our
prototype crowd cognitive model architecture that was a
cognitive model architecture will be able to simulate
more crowd members because it does not have to result of these design meetings. In the most basic sense,
calculate so many individuals cognitive processes. the CM will accept stimuli as input and produce a
However, the individual parameters will still be behavior response as output.
important, especially as it deals with how they may As can be seen, the crowd CM will track multiple
impact group decisions and how group decisions may parameters and mental states. The parameters are used to
impact an individual. describe the state of the crowd situation, such as its size,
The mental states of the crowd & of the group have leadership structure, etc. The mental states are variables
been simplified to a single state, called the crowd that are used to describe internal states of the crowds
aggression level (CAL) & group aggression level mind. Please note that we are not suggesting that there
(GAL), respectively. The individual mental state will
exists a crowd mind that controls how the individuals
be called the PAL, or personal aggression level. This
behave; these mental states are more to store internal
is an assumption taken to simplify the model and
crowd information that might somehow influence the
because at the basic level, we are interested in what
makes crowds turn violent. However, we should behavior of the individuals and groups within that crowd.
realize that there should possibly be more mental
states modeled and that the mental state could be
capturing different emotions, such as jealousy level,
fear level, etc.
 Cognitive Model (Initialization) Cognitive Model (Execution)

Calculate new CAL

Set initial CP

For n=1 to N-1,

Calculate initial Crowd where N=# of groups, Increment n
Aggression Level (CAL) select GroupnGroupx

Is Groupn
Distribute GAL part of Groupxs
to Groups crowd?

Yes

Weight CAL to Group No

impact w/ Groupn S

Federate Execution

Figure 4 Crowd/Group Parameters Physical model simulation Update Groupns GAL

As mentioned in section 4.2, the crowd/group parameters

were adopted from those identified by the Crowd Did Groupns GAL
No
Stimuli
Modeling Workshop attendees during the first and second change?

workshops as being important to consider when modeling Cognitive Model (Execution)

Yes

crowds. These parameters can be separated into three Update GAL of Select new behavior

categories: crowd parameters, control force parameters, Groupx receiving stimuli for Groupn

and situational parameters, and are shown in Figure 4.

Weight Group to CAL
The individual parameters have yet to be identified, but impact w/ Groupx LC
Send behavior to PM Process next Groupn

the initial belief is that they will correspond closely to

those parameters identified by the Human Effects
Advisory Panel in conjunction with the JNLWDs study
on crowd behavior [18]. These individual parameters are
emotion, focus, stress, confidence, and motivation.
4.4 The Computational Model Algorithm
Figure 5 depicts the computational model algorithm for
the prototype. For this iteration of the prototype, we have
implemented those portions of the algorithm that are in
outlined in solid lines. Those steps outlined with dashed
lines have not yet been implemented in the prototype, but
are planned improvements for the next iteration of the
cognitive model prototype. We can see that the
computational model is relatively straightforward. There
is an initialization phase, where the crowd parameters
(CP) are used to calculate an initial crowd aggression
level (CAL), which in turn is distributed down to the
groups aggression levels (GALs). How this CAL is
distributed to the groups is a design decision that can be
changed based on the requirements of the scenario. For
the initial prototype, we decided to model three types of
groups, one that had a GAL equal to the CAL, one that
was less aggressive and the last more aggressive.
After the cognitive model is initialized, the next phase is
the federation execution phase. During this phase, the
crowd federate will be executing, with the physical model
continuously feeding stimuli into the cognitive model.
The cognitive model will process the received stimuli to
select a new group action to be sent to the physical model.
Figure 5: Computational Model Algorithm
What follows is a more detailed description of the
computational model algorithm. The portions of the
algorithm not implemented yet are italicized.
Initialize the Crowd Parameters
Calculate an initial crowd aggression level (CAL)
From this CAL, use an appropriate algorithm to
distribute and initialize the groups and their GALs
(see Section 4.4.1 for an example of such a
distribution).
Once the user specifies (or the federate automatically
generates) the group types & their distributions, the
federate will begin execution.
Stimuli will be sent to the individual members. Only
the stimuli for the leader of the group will be
analyzed and the stimuli x crowd parameter matrix
will be used to calculate a new GAL for the group
that leader is a part of. By only using the leaders
stimuli, we achieve two objectives. We avoid having
the same stimuli possibly having multiple effects on
the groups GAL since they will all probably receive
the same stimuli and we reduce the amount of CM
processing involved since stimuli of non-leaders are
not processed.
Calculate a new CAL. For the prototype, the CAL is
directly impacted by the incoming stimuli. Ideally,
the impact on the CAL will be weighted by some
combination of the group parametersLeadership,
Cognitive Conflict, and Social Influence (LCS).
 For all groups that are members of the same
crowd as the group who received the stimuli,
modify their GALs based on some weighting
determined by their proximity to the stimulated group
and to some subset of the LCS weighting.
Update the Groups GAL. For the first iteration
prototype, the CAL is distributed between the three
groups, one with the same value, one less aggressive,
and the last more aggressive.
If the groups GAL changed aggression level, select a
new behavior for the group and send it to the physical
model to be realized.
4.5 The ImplementationTables
One of the goals of the crowd behavior CMA is to
develop a flexible architecture that can be easily adapted
to express the most current psychological understanding
of crowds and crowd behavior. In order to achieve this
flexibility, the current cognitive model implementation
utilizes three tables to configure itself. This section
provides details of the tables that were used and how they
were implemented.
4.5.1 Crowd Parameters x Crowd Parameters
Table
This table is a pair-wise comparison of the crowd
parameters vs. crowd parameters. This is a head-to-head
comparison of each crowd parameter and its current
condition with all of the other crowd parameters and their
current conditions. If any of the two parameters have the
values as indicated by the row and column headings, then
a point is assigned for that slot with one of the three
possible measures of 0, -1, or 1. A 0 is assigned if the
combination of those two parameters would cause the
crowds aggression level to remain the same; a -1 if it
would cause the crowd to become less aggressive; and a 1
if it would cause the crowd to become more aggressive.
Table 3 below is a sample of such a comparison.
Terrain.
Steep
Terrain. Flat
Crowd Size. Crowd Size. Crowd Size.
Small Med
Terrain.
Steep
it is used to dynamically create enumerated types for each
of the parameters. The format of the labels is a string
followed by a period followed by another string. The first
string is the name of the enumerated type while the
second is a value for that type. So with the following
labels: Terrain.STEEP, Terrain.FLAT,
CrowdSize.SMALL, CrowdSize.MED, and
CrowdSize.BIG, there would be two enumerated types:
Terrain and CrowdSize. The Terrain type will have an
attribute list storing STEEP & FLAT while the
CrowdSize type will have an attribute list of SMALL,
MED, & BIG.
This table is used in the CMA in a couple of ways. In
particular, it is used to calculate the initial crowd
aggression level (CAL). The initial CAL is the average of
the aggression level changes added to 0.5. For example,
lets say that the current values for the crowd parameters
are Terrain = Flat, CrowdSize = Med, and Mood =
Curious. If we go down the CParm X CParm table, we
see from the highlighted values that the sum of the
changes would be 1 (or 1+1-1). The average changes
would be (1+1-1)/3 = 1/3. So, the initial aggression level
would be 0.5+0.33, or 0.83.
From this initial CAL, we assume that we have three
representative groups around that CAL of which the first
group will be less aggressive, the second would have the
same aggression level, and the third group will be slightly
more aggressive. The current delta that the groups
aggression levels differ from the mean CAL is one
aggression level interval, but this value can be modified
as more data becomes available. Therefore, with an
initial CAL = 0.83 and interval of 0.16, we can compute
the following GALs:
GAL1 = CAL 0.16 = 0.67
GAL2 = CAL = 0.83
GAL3 = CAL + 0.16 = 0.99
Mapping the CMA to this CM proved to be interesting
considering there are only two groups of Somalis
Big
Mood.
Neutral
Mood.
Avoidance
Mood.
Curious
Mood.
Aggressive
Mood.
Aggressive
Mood.
Aggressive
modeled, the Somali citizen and the Somali militiaman,
yet three groups. Therefore, it was assumed that all
Posture Non-lethal Lethal Action

Terrain. Flat

Crowd Size.
Small
-1 1
Somali militiamen would be assigned to the most
Crowd Size.
Med
Crowd Size.
-1 1 aggressive group, GAL3, while the Somali citizens would
be equally split between the average and less aggressive
-1 1
Big
Mood.
0 0 0 0 0
Neutral
Mood.
Avoidance
Mood.
-1

-1
-1

1
-1

-1
-1

-1
-1

-1
groups, GAL1 & GAL2.
Curious
Mood.
Aggressive
Posture
1 1 1 1 1
Once the aggression levels have been initialized and the
crowd members separated into groups, the crowd
Mood.
Aggressive 1 1 1 1 1
Non-lethal

Mood.
Aggressive
Lethal Action
1 1 1 1 1 cognitive model can now begin its steady-state operation.
Table 3: Crowd Parameter x Crowd Parameter In this state, the CM will accept stimuli and produce a
behavior. The following two input tables, the Stimuli X
The top row specifies the parameters being used in our CAL table and the Mood X Behavior table support this
crowd model. This row of labels is very important in that operation.
4.5.2 Stimuli X Crowd Aggression Level Table since those are the only behaviors implemented in the
physical model in the prototype. However, the intention
This table is used to determine how incoming stimuli
is to choose certain behaviors based on a probability or on
might affect the crowds aggression level. In the initial
some more complex algorithm using the current crowd
CM prototype, we are only concerned with the various
parameters and/or stimuli received.
stimuli outlined in the table. However, it would be just as
simple to include the effects of other types of stimuli such Mood: Aggression Behavior Repertoire
as the state change and event stimuli. Table 4 is a Level
Avoidance Flee From
sampling from the table developed for the prototype. Neutral Wander Hang Out
From the figure, we can see that there are two types of Curious Stare At Seek To
crowd members modeled for the Mogadishu scenario Aggressive Posture Burn Tire Swarm To
[19], the Militia and the Citizen. For each stimuli and Aggressive Non lethal Throw Rock at
Aggressive Lethal Action Shoot At
current aggression level, we see that there are again three
Table 5: Mood X Behavior Table
possible measures, 0, -1, and 1. Similar to the Crowd
Parameter X Crowd Parameter table, these represent 4.6 Whats Next?
changes to the crowds aggression level. If the Militia
receives a stimuli called See Control Force and is We were successful in implementing a computational
currently in a Curious state, then we see that the 1 model for the cognitive model and incorporating it into
means that his aggression level will increase. As we can the crowd federate. This prototype is currently being used
see, the response to the same stimuli is dependent on both to run fidelity experiments [11] to determine at what level
the crowd member type and the current aggression level. the crowds should be modeled in order to have a relevant
impact on the training objectives of the expected users.
CROWD AGGRESSION LEVEL We hope to be able to take lessons learned from these
MEMBER STIMULUS Aggressive Aggressive Aggressive
TYPE Neutral Avoidance Curious Posture Non-lethal Lethal Action experiments to incorporate changes into the next iteration
Militia See control force -1 -1 1 1 1 1
See friend 1 -1 -1 -1 -1 0 of the prototype. Along with those changes, we have
identified other portions of the cognitive model
See neutral 0 0 0 0 0 0
See burning tire 1 -1 1 1 1 1
Citizen See control force
See friend
0
0
1
0
1
1
1
-1
1
-1
0
0 architecture that could be improved or expanded. These
See neutral
See burning tire
0
-1
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
0 enhancements are outlined below:
Table 4: Stimuli x Aggression Level Not only are there the parameters identified by the
JNLWDs Crowd Modeling Workshop being used as
So, when the CM receives stimuli, it will process all
the group parameters for computing the groups
stimuli received by a particular character and
mental state, there will also be other parameters that
decrease/increase the CAL by the appropriate amount
will be used to capture the within-group and
based on which stimuli was processed. From this new between-group interactions. The initial set of
CAL, new GALs are redistributed to each of the defined interaction group parameters that have been
groups. If the GAL "level" of the group that this identified is the Leadership, Cognitive Conflict, and
individual belongs to changes, generate a new action for Social Influence (LCS) parameters. The LCS group-
this character. Otherwise, return a null action. The action level parameters will be used to weight how the
that is selected is taken from the following table, the groups changing aggression levels may also affect
mood X behavior table. the aggression levels of other groups within the
crowd.
4.5.3 Mood X Behavior Table The crowd parameters from the Crowd Modeling
The final table used in the implemented cognitive model Workshops are applicable at the group level, too.
Therefore, these parameters will be used to determine
prototype is the Mood X Behavior table (Table 5). As the
the general aggression level impact on the groups.
name implies, this table maps a particular mood level to a
The LCS group-level parameters will be used to
list of possible behaviors to select based on that mood.
weight how the groups aggression levels will affect
This table was produced from the violent behavior the crowd.
continuum described in Table 2 in the Behaviors section
The algorithm for distributing the initialized CAL to
above. the different groups should be modified. Instead of
From the table we see that if the current character is at a having only three groups, we must identify more
curious aggression level, then it could choose to either group types, such as familial groups, friends,
participate in a stare at or seek to behavior. acquaintances, agitators, peaceful protesters, etc. The
Currently, only the first column behaviors are selected federate should provide a list of possible crowd
 distributions of groups and group types that the user
can select from. This will somehow be based off of
some of the crowd parameter values, such as crowd
size, demographics, initial mood, propensity for
violence, etc. Each group type will have a particular
initial GAL associated with it. If you want to achieve
a particular CAL, you can select a predefined set of
group makeup with different GALs, distributed in a
particular way that combines together to produce the
desired CAL.
In [18], the experts in crowds, crowd control, and
crowd behavior specify that the crowd should not be
treated as an entity, but rather as a 3-phase process
namely the assembling phase, the rallying phase (we
prefer the term rallying rather than gathering, as
specified), and the dispersal. We plan to incorporate
this concept of the crowd as a process by identifying
and weighting the affects of the various parameters
on the overall aggression levels based on which
phase the crowd is currently in.
5 CONCLUSION
As can be gleaned from this paper, much work still needs
to be done in the development of a cognitive model for
crowd behavior. However, we were able to create a CM
architecture that processes incoming stimuli to produce
credible crowd behavior. Due to time constraints, we
were only able to implement a simplified cognitive model
that directly responds to stimuli. However, the CM
framework can easily support a more complex algorithm
for processing the stimuli and their effect on the crowd
parameters & crowd aggression level to produce a
credible crowd-level behavior.
Most of the data that we have collected during our
research is at the crowd and group level. We realize that
a lot more research still needs to be done at the individual
levels. However, once the research has been completed
and the psychological model more refined, we could
easily incorporate these into the CM to produce more
complex behavior selection.
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7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research described in this paper is sponsored by the
Defense Modeling and Simulation Office and managed by
the Air Force Research Laboratory. That support is
gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to thank the
psychology team Ryland Gaskins and Carlotta Boone for
tireless meetings and endless tables.
8 AUTHORS BIOGRAPHIES
Dominion University where he currently serves as
Principal Investigator (PI) and Co-PI on projects
involving medical modeling and simulation, behavior
representation in simulations, and simulation
architectures. Prior to joining ODU, he held a senior
scientist position at Science Applications International
Corporation (SAIC), serving as Principal Investigator for
several distributed simulation projects. At SAIC he was a
Team Lead on a large distributed simulation system. He
has over 10 years of research and development experience
in the software and artificial intelligence fields, including
object-oriented design and knowledge-based systems.
Both his M.S. and Ph.D. work have been in artificial
intelligence focusing on knowledge representation and
model-based diagnostic reasoning.
Mikel D. Petty is Chief Scientist of the Virginia
Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center at Old
Dominion University. He received a Ph.D. in Computer
Science from the University of Central Florida in 1997.
Dr. Petty has worked in modeling and simulation research
and development since 1990 in areas that include
simulation interoperability, computer generated forces,
multi-resolution simulation, and applications of theory to
simulation. He has published over 110 research papers
and has been awarded over 50 research contracts. He has
served on a National Research Council committee on
modeling and simulation and is currently an editor of the
journals SIMULATION: Transactions of the Society for
Modeling and Simulation International and Journal of
Defense Modeling and Simulation.

Quynh-Anh (Mimi) H. Nguyen is a Graduate Research

Assistant and PhD student in the Engineering Modeling &
Simulation program at the Virginia Modeling, Analysis,
& Simulation Center at Old Dominion University. She
received her M.E. degree in Engineering Modeling &
Simulation from Old Dominion University in 2003, and a
B.S. in Electrical Engineering from George Mason
University in 1997. Prior to coming to ODU, Ms.
Nguyen held a staff engineer/scientist position at
Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance
SystemUndersea Systems, where she worked on
several modeling & simulation projects, including
designing & implementing a collaborative engineering
environment and developing complex system
performance models using discrete-event simulations.
While at VMASC, Ms. Nguyens research has focused on
using military simulation, distributed simulation and
gaming technology to develop a Crowd Federate and
crowd cognitive model.
Frederic (Rick) D. McKenzie, Ph.D. is an Assistant
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Old