Agent‐based human behavior modeling for crowd simulation

TLDR

Human crowds are a fascinating social phenomenon. The study designs a behavior model for virtual humans in crowd simulations for normal and emergency scenarios. The agent-based model employs a layered framework that mirrors human decision‑making, incorporates social psychology theories for group behavior, and is integrated into an agent execution process. The model enables agents to respond to their environment with realistic physiological, emotional, and social decisions, and a case study demonstrates realistic behavior at individual and group levels. © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract

Abstract Human crowd is a fascinating social phenomenon in nature. This paper presents our work on designing behavior model for virtual humans in a crowd simulation under normal‐life and emergency situations. Our model adopts an agent‐based approach and employs a layered framework to reflect the natural pattern of human‐like decision making process, which generally involves a person's awareness of the situation and consequent changes on the internal attributes. The social group and crowd‐related behaviors are modeled according to the findings and theories observed from social psychology (e.g., social attachment theory). By integrating our model into an agent execution process, each individual agent can response differently to the perceived environment and make realistic behavioral decisions based on various physiological, emotional, and social group attributes. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our model, a case study has been conducted, which shows that realistic human behaviors can be generated at both individual and group level. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.