In the last year or so I've been developing a program for modelling small group behavior based on the body of social and social psychological theory developed by Vygotsky and Ilyenkov among others. I am aware of Nardi's, Kuuti's and others work using activity theory, and though interesting it is not relevant to the form or goals of this program. This program is designed to model dialectical processes involved in the enactment of performance rather than to serve as an interface between user and computer that is informed by activity theory.
The basic architecture of the program is finished and I'm now extending the program further, as well as helping design a computerised application. The program is fairly simple, but unusual, and neither I nor the people I'm working with have encountered anything like it. Contacts with Nigel Gilbert of JASSS (Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation) have been very valuable for developing the program, but I think we've reached the point where the orientation of the JASSS people and our own is too far apart (hopefully temporarily) to continue a profitable discourse. If you know of anyone who is working on similar problems, i.e. developing computational models based on dialectical analyses of social interaction and social systems, rendering Vygotskian social psychology into computational formats, and so on, please let me know.
With regard,
Victor Friedlander-Rokach
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