Exploratory and participatory simulation

We discuss two forms of user-interactive simulation: in exploratory simulation users may explore a system by means of interventions, and in participatory simulation they may participate in a multi-agent simulation scenario by controlling (or `playing') one of the agents. Exploratory simulation can be used by researchers for validating a simulation model and it can be used by students and trainees for learning the dynamics of a system by interacting with a simulation model of it. Participatory simulation allows dealing with simulation problems where one (or more) of the involved human roles cannot be modeled sufficiently faithfully and therefore have to be played by human actors that participate in simulation runs. We elaborate the concepts of exploratory and participatory simulation on a general, implementation-independent level. We also show how they can be implemented with the AOR Simulation (AORS 2012) platform based on the human-computer interaction paradigm of agent control.