In computing theory, the role of agents is gaining wide acceptance. Intelligent agent systems that proactively include users’ intentions are being perceived as useful in promoting better user acceptance. User intentions are critical for the effective use of the systems developed. These intentions are quite dynamic and subjective, and therefore difficult to map in their entirety before developing the actual system. However, prospective intelligent systems respect these mapping issues and attempt to address them optimally, while developing the systems. Agent architectures constantly strive to suggest meaningful ways to include user intentions and behaviors in the systems developed.

Mascarenhas et al. make useful contributions to the analysis of user intentions and behaviors, as related to their cultural aspects. Cultural aspects of user behavior are quite subjective, and carry the limitations of providing objective ways to measure and reflect their influences while building intelligent systems. In this paper, the authors consider rituals to be a critical dimension of culture. They present a procedure to observe the characteristics of rituals in the process. The research methods used in the paper include architectural analyses through five agents and 41 subjects, under two different scenarios.

Although these research methods are adequate, t-tests would have improved the clarity of the results. The paper needs better explanations through algorithms, followed by justifications for having a small sample size. Because of these limitations (and the guided video presentations), tests against biases are essential.

Overall, this is an informative paper on analyzing results for intelligent agents, with a focus on cultural dimensions. It will interest researchers who are working to develop intelligent agents to more effectively manage user-oriented systems.