Evacuation Simulation Based on Cognitive Decision Making Model in a Socio-Technical System

In the last decade the shift of information and communication systems from a purely system level to the social level is already observable. However, the integration of social / cognitive aspects into so-called social computing is not an easy task due to conceptual differences in domains. A Socio-Technical System (STS) is a recent term intending to differentiate between a social system mediated by natural sciences or information technology. Even if the mediation of social / cognitive aspects is "theoretically" governed by technology, the gap between "socio" and "technical" is historical and huge. Furthermore the fact that with every passing year, the technical systems become more intelligent with respect to interaction with people and their pervasiveness, a special attention should be given to modelling both social and technical components and interaction between them. For example while modelling (and simulating) an emergency situation from a public facility, the possible availability of technology at the environment (e.g. situation-aware exit signs, interactive displays, etc.) and personal (e.g. cell phones, specialized wearables etc.) level, along with its social / cognitive influence must not be overruled. To address this challenge, we have integrated cognitive decision making model abstracted from psychological, neurological and social theories of human behaviour during evacuation situations into CA based simulation. Keeping focus on a scenario in which a small population of agents is technologically assisted, some of the most interesting finding are: (i) the inclusion of a representative and authentic social behaviour model into modelling a socio-technical system essentially produces fundamental differences in methodologies, (ii) the technologically assisted agents emerge as leaders during evacuation changing the intentions of many agents within their influence (iii) even a small population of such leaders in sufficiently large population is enough to guarantee a remarkable difference, particularly improving usage of possibly under-utilized exits.