A three-dimensional human agent metaphor for modeling and simulation

The use of metaphor can be a potential aid to the novice modeler in several ways. Metaphor can imbue abstract ideas with concrete properties, thereby making the abstract ideas more accessible. The analogies suggested by metap hor might also aid reasoning about modeling and implementation problems. An other potential benefit of metaphor in modeling is the improvement of menta l retention of model architecture and functionality. Traditionally models a nd programs have been produced in a two-dimensional (2-D) or textual medium . However these media may be inferior to a three-dimensional (3-D) medium i n the development and use of metaphor, as the concrete properties that meta phors often provide are real-world phenomena, which are naturally 3-0. We d eveloped an example of the use of metaphors in modeling and 3-0 simulation. The example consists of a simplified operating system task scheduler; alon g with associated hardware devices, developed in a VRML environment using V RML PROTO nodes. These nodes are designed as modular objects based on real- world metaphors. We were able to construct a set of metaphors and prototype s that may, if extended, ease the modeling and design of agent-oriented sys tems for novices. A proposed extension of one metaphor presented in the res earch is the synthetic human agent.