Cultural Behavior Generation for Distributed Simulation

U.S. Army personnel need realistic cultural training to carry out Stability and Support Operations (SASO) in foreign environments. Virtual environments supported by simulations such as the OneSAF Objective System (OOS) could help fill this training need. To do this, the simulations must model people in foreign cultures. Today’s simulations for virtual environments do not have models of intelligent human behavior that are combined with models of mental states, cultural characteristics, and physical expressions of those states and characteristics. Soar Technology, in conjunction with Vcom3D, is proposing to develop a cultural behavior generation (CBG) system that will include the components necessary for generating human behavior characteristic of people of different cultures. These components will include a cognitive behavior model, a human factors model, and a physical behavior model. In Phase I of the proposed project, Soar Technology will review existing culture modeling components and identify technologies that can be applied to the objective CBG system; identify training objectives for a CBG system and develop an exemplary scenario; develop initial designs for integrating CBG into distributed simulations in general and OOS in particular; and provide a functional demonstration of cognitive and physical behavior models working together to produce cultural behavior.