Behaviors that emerge from emotion and cognition: implementation and evaluation of a symbolic-connectionist architecture

This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of a framework for modeling emotions in complex, decision-making agents. Sponsored by U.S. Army Research Institute (ARI), the objective of this research is to make the decision-making process of complex agents less predictable and more realistic, by incorporating emotional factors that affect humans. In tune with modern theories of emotions, we regard emotions essentially as subconscious signals and evaluations that inform, modify, and receive feedback from a variety of sources including higher cognitive processes and the sensorimotor system. Thus, our work explicitly distinguishes the subconscious processes (in a connectionist implementation) and the decision making that is subject to emotional influences (in a symbolic cognitive architecture). It is our position that “emotional states” are emergent patterns of interaction between decision-making knowledge and these emotional signal systems. To this end, we have adopted an ap...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: ATAL
• Authors: Amy E. Henninger, Randolph M. Jones, Eric Chown
• Keywords: ATAL 2003, Decision Making, Emotional, Factors Affecting Emotions