Bipolarity in argumentation graphs: Towards a better understanding

Different abstract argumentation frameworks have been used for various applications within multi-agents systems. Among them, bipolar frameworks make use of both attack and support relations between arguments. However, there is no single interpretation of the support, and the handling of bipolarity cannot avoid a deeper analysis of the notion of support. In this paper we consider three recent proposals for specializing the support relation in abstract argumentation: the deductive support, the necessary support and the evidential support. These proposals have been developed independently within different frameworks. We restate these proposals in a common setting, which enables us to undertake a comparative study of the modellings obtained for the three variants of the support. We highlight relationships and differences between these variants, namely a kind of duality between the deductive and the necessary interpretations of the support. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.