I Like What I Know: How Recognition-Based Decisions Can Structure the Environment

Cognitive mechanisms are shaped by evolution to match their environments. But through their use, these mechanisms exert a shaping force on their surroundings as well. Here we explore this cognition-environment interaction by looking at how using a very simple cognitive mechanism, the recognition heuristic for making choices, can result in some objects in the world being much more often recognized and “talked about” than others. An agent-based simulation is used to show what behavioral factors affect the emergence of this environmental structure.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2001
• Where: ECAL
• Authors: Peter M. Todd, Simon Kirby
• Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Mechanism, ECAL 2001, Recognition Heuristic, Simple Cognitive Mechanism