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Collaborations to accomplish common goals necessitate negotiation to share and reach agreement on the beliefs that agents hold as part of the collaboration. Negotiation in communication can be simulated by a series of exchanges in which agents propose, reject, counterpropose or seek supporting information for be-liefs they wish to be held mutually. In an artificial language of negotiation, messages display the state of the agents’ beliefs. Dialogues consisting of such messages clarify the means by which agents come to agree or fail to agree on mutual beliefs and individual inten-tions.