STOCHASTIC MODEL OF PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION.

A source repeatedly communicates a message through a channel so as to persuade a decision-maker to take a favorable action. The decision-maker observes the environment, the message and his cumulative learning experience and stochastically goes through a sequence of information processing states before taking an action. The transient and the steady state components of this information processing behavior are modeled in the semi-Markov process framework. Given such behavior, the problem of optimal communication system design is considered, using different measures of effectiveness of the persuasion process. Applications to advertising, decentralized planning and organizational decision-making are indicated.