scholarly journals Body Schema in Autonomous Agents

2021 ◽  
Vol 08 (01) ◽  
pp. 113-145
Author(s):  
Zachariah A. Neemeh ◽  
Christian Kronsted ◽  
Sean Kugele ◽  
Stan Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Agents ◽  
Cognitive Architecture ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
Dorsal Stream ◽  
The Body ◽  
Intelligent Decision ◽  
Computational Implementation ◽  
Global Workspace ◽  
Global Workspace Theory

A body schema is an agent’s model of its own body that enables it to act on affordances in the environment. This paper presents a body schema system for the Learning Intelligent Decision Agent (LIDA) cognitive architecture. LIDA is a conceptual and computational implementation of Global Workspace Theory, also integrating other theories from neuroscience and psychology. This paper contends that the ‘body schema’ should be split into three separate functions based on the functional role of consciousness in Global Workspace Theory. There is (1) an online model of the agent’s effectors and effector variables (Current Body Schema), (2) a long-term, recognitional storage of embodied capacities for action and affordances (Habitual Body Schema), and (3) “dorsal” stream information feeding directly from early perception to sensorimotor processes (Online Body Schema). This paper then discusses how the LIDA model of the body schema explains several experiments in psychology and ethology.

A Global Workspace Model Implementation and its Relations with Philosophy of Mind

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Eduardo C. Garrido-Mercháin ◽  
Martín Molina ◽  
Francisco M. Mendoza-Soto
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Autonomous Agents ◽  
Cognitive Architecture ◽  
Cognitive Model ◽  
Autonomous Agent ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Global Workspace ◽  
The One ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Global Workspace Theory

This work seeks to study the beneficial properties that an autonomous agent can obtain by imitating a cognitive architecture similar to that of conscious beings. Throughout this document, a cognitive model of an autonomous agent-based in a global workspace architecture is presented. We hypothesize that consciousness is an evolutionary advantage, so if our autonomous agent can be potentially conscious, its performance will be enhanced. We explore whether an autonomous agent implementing a cognitive architecture like the one proposed in the global workspace theory can be conscious from a philosophy of mind perspective, with a special emphasis on functionalism and multiple realizability. The purposes of our proposed model are to create autonomous agents that can navigate within an environment composed of multiple independent magnitudes, adapting to its surroundings to find the best possible position according to its inner preferences and to test the effectiveness of many of its cognitive mechanisms, such as an attention mechanism for magnitude selection, possession of inner feelings and preferences, usage of a memory system to storage beliefs and past experiences, and incorporating the consciousness bottleneck into the decision-making process, that controls and integrates information processed by all the subsystems of the model, as in global workspace theory. We show in a large experiment set how potentially conscious autonomous agents can benefit from having a cognitive architecture such as the one described.

scholarly journals Modeling Long-Term Intentions and Narratives in Autonomous Agents

2021 ◽  
pp. 2150010
Author(s):  
Christian Kronsted ◽  
Zachariah A. Neemeh ◽  
Sean Kugele ◽  
Stan Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Time Scales ◽  
Autonomous Agents ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Cognitive Architecture ◽  
The Self ◽  
Impact Action ◽  
Global Workspace ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Intentional Structure

Across various fields it is argued that the self in part consists of an autobiographical self-narrative and that the self-narrative has an impact on agential behavior. Similarly, within action theory, it is claimed that the intentional structure of coherent long-term action is divided into a hierarchy of distal, proximal, and motor intentions. However, the concrete mechanisms for how narratives and distal intentions are generated and impact action is rarely fleshed out concretely. We here demonstrate how narratives and distal intentions can be generated within cognitive agents and how they can impact agential behavior over long time scales. We integrate narratives and distal intentions into the LIDA model, and demonstrate how they can guide agential action in a manner that is consistent with the Global Workspace Theory of consciousness. This paper serves both as an addition to the LIDA cognitive architecture and an elucidation of how narratives and distal intention emerge and play their role in cognition and action

What is the body schema?

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-17
Author(s):  
Frédérique de Vignemont ◽  
Victor Pitron ◽  
Adrian J. T. Alsmith
Keyword(s):  
Motor Control ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
General Term ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Detailed Characterization ◽  
Body Representations ◽  
Local Body

The body schema is commonly defined as the representation of a body for action. But what do we mean exactly by that? What makes the body schema so special? The type of information that it represents? The way this information is represented? Or the function of the representation? And is there more than one type of body schema? There is a sense indeed in which the term ‘body schema’ is ambiguous, in that it functions as a general term that groups together various body representations intervening at different stages in motor control, representing short- or long-term properties, used for positive or negative affordances. In addition, one might want to distinguish between local body schemata, which represent body parts, and a global body schema, which represents the body as a whole. But is this latter holistic representation really necessary? Here this chapter will present a detailed characterization of the manifold of representational processes involved in what we commonly refer to as the body schema, as well as the key mechanisms that contribute to their construal.

scholarly journals Body Representations and Cognitive Ontology: Drawing the boundaries of the body image

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Gadsby
Keyword(s):  
Body Image ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
Body Representation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Reciprocal Interaction ◽  
Body Representations ◽  
Alice In Wonderland ◽  
The Relationship

The distinction between body image and body schema has been incredibly influential in cognitive neuroscience. Recently, researchers have begun to speculate about the relationship between these representations (Gadsby, 2017; 2018; Pitron & de Vignemont, 2017; Pitron et al., 2018). Within this emerging literature, Pitron and colleagues (2018) proposed that the long-term body image and long-term body schema co-construct one another, through a process of reciprocal interaction. In proposing this model, they make two assumptions: that the long-term body image incorporates the spatial characteristics of tools, and that it is distorted in the case of Alice in wonderland syndrome. Here, I challenge these assumptions, with a closer examination of what the term “long-term body image” refers to. In doing so, I draw out some important taxonomic principles for research into body representation.

Defining the Competence of Psychologists with a View to Public Accountability *

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ype H. Poortinga ◽  
Ingrid Lunt
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Professional Training ◽  
Professional Competence ◽  
Codes Of Ethics ◽  
The Body ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Rigorous Evaluation ◽  
Judicial Proceedings ◽  
Psychological Knowledge

In national codes of ethics the practice of psychology is presented as rooted in scientific knowledge, professional skills, and experience. However, it is not self-evident that the body of scientific knowledge in psychology provides an adequate basis for current professional practice. Professional training and experience are seen as necessary for the application of psychological knowledge, but they appear insufficient to defend the soundness of one's practices when challenged in judicial proceedings of a kind that may be faced by psychologists in the European Union in the not too distant future. In seeking to define the basis for the professional competence of psychologists, this article recommends taking a position of modesty concerning the scope and effectiveness of psychological interventions. In many circumstances, psychologists can only provide partial advice, narrowing down the range of possible courses of action more by eliminating unpromising ones than by pointing out the most correct or most favorable one. By emphasizing rigorous evaluation, the profession should gain in accountability and, in the long term, in respectability.

STUDIES IN THE SUPPOSED GOITROGENOUS EFFECT OF TAP WATER IN HELSINKI

1960 ◽  
Vol XXXIII (IV) ◽  
pp. 630-636
Author(s):  
F.-E. Krusius ◽  
P. Peltola
Keyword(s):  
Tap Water ◽  
Physiological Saline ◽  
Normal Weight ◽  
The Body ◽  
Iodine Uptake ◽  
Redistilled Water ◽  
Detectable Difference ◽  
Term Administration ◽  
Long Term Experiment

ABSTRACT The study reported here was performed in order to examine the tap water of Helsinki for its alleged goitrogenous effect. In a short-term, 24-hour experiment with rats, kept on an iodine-poor diet, we noticed no inhibition of the 4-hour 131I uptake, as compared with that of animals receiving physiological saline instead of tap water. Two similar groups of rats receiving 1 and 2 mg of mercazole in redistilled water showed a distinct blockage of the 4-hour uptake, which proved the effect of this substance. In a long-term experiment of 5 weeks' duration there was no detectable difference in the body weight, thyroid weight and the 4-hour 131I uptake when the rats receiving tap water or distilled water to which 0.45 per cent of sodium chloride was added were compared with each other. Replacement of tap water by a 10 mg per cent solution of mercazole in redistilled water enlarged the thyroid to double its normal weight and increased the 131I uptake to approximately five times that of the controls. Thus our experiments failed to demonstrate any goitrogenous effect in the tap water of Helsinki. Changes similar to those produced by a long-term administration of mercazole, i. e. an enlargement of the thyroid and an increased thyroidal iodine uptake, have been shown to be due to milk collected from goitrous areas. The observations here reported confirm the importance of milk in the genesis of the goitre endemia of Helsinki. Attention is further called to the fact that a thyroidal enlargement combined with an increased thyroidal iodine uptake cannot always be taken as a sign of iodine deficiency because similar changes may be produced by the administration of goitrogens.

ANALYSIS OF ABDOMINAL TYPHOID INCIDENCE IN THE SOUTH REGION OF THE KYRGYZ REPUBLIC

2020 ◽  
pp. 43-48
Author(s):  
Zakirova J.S. ◽  
Nadirbekova R.A. ◽  
Zholdoshev S.T.
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Typhoid Fever ◽  
Risk Groups ◽  
The Body ◽  
Kyrgyz Republic ◽  
Radiation Factor ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
Immunological Deficiency

The article analyze the long-term morbidity, spread of typhoid fever in the southern regions of the Kyrgyz republic, and remains a permanent epidemic focus in the Jalal-Abad region, where against the low availability of the population to high-quality drinking water, an additional factor on the body for more than two generations and radiation factor, which we confirmed by the spread among the inhabitants of Mailuu-Suu of nosological forms of the syndrome of immunological deficiency, as a predictor of risk groups for infectious diseases, including typhoid fever.

Comparative assessment of morphological mechanisms of maintaining structural liver homeostasis in the dynamics of exposure to coal-rock dust and sodium fluoride on the body

2020 ◽  
pp. 189-194
Author(s):  
M. S. Bugaeva ◽  
O. I. Bondarev ◽  
N. N. Mikhailova ◽  
L. G. Gorokhova
Keyword(s):  
Sodium Fluoride ◽  
Morphological Changes ◽  
The Body ◽  
System Level ◽  
Production Factor ◽  
Coal Rock ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Structural Homeostasis ◽  
Rock Dust

Introduction. The impact on the body of such factors of the production environment as coal-rock dust and fluorine compounds leads to certain shift s in strict indicators of homeostasis at the system level. Maintaining the relative constancy of the internal environment of the body is provided by the functional consistency of all organs and systems, the leading of which is the liver. Organ repair plays a crucial role in restoring the structure of genetic material and maintaining normal cell viability. When this mechanism is damaged, the compensatory capabilities of the organ are disrupted, homeostasis is disrupted at the cellular and organizational levels, and the development of the main pathological processes is noted.The aim of the study is to compare the morphological mechanisms of maintaining structural homeostasis of the liver in the dynamics of the impact on the body of coal-rock dust and sodium fluoride.Materials and methods. Experimental studies were conducted on adult white male laboratory rats. Features of morphological mechanisms for maintaining structural homeostasis of the liver in the dynamics of exposure to coal-rock dust and sodium fluoride were studied on experimental models of pneumoconiosis and fluoride intoxication. For histological examination in experimental animals, liver sampling was performed after 1, 3, 6, 9, 12 weeks of the experiment.Results. The specificity of morphological changes in the liver depending on the harmful production factor was revealed. It is shown that chronic exposure to coal-rock dust and sodium fluoride is characterized by the development of similar morphological changes in the liver and its vessels from the predominance of the initial compensatory-adaptive to pronounced violations of the stromal and parenchymal components. Long-term inhalation of coal-rock dust at 1–3 weeks of seeding triggers adaptive mechanisms in the liver in the form of increased functional activity of cells, formation of double-core hepatocytes, activation of immunocompetent cells and endotheliocytes, ensuring the preservation of the parenchyma and the general morphostructure of the organ until the 12th week of the experiment. Exposure to sodium fluoride leads to early disruption of liver compensatory mechanisms and the development of dystrophic changes in the parenchyma with the formation of necrosis foci as early as the 6th week of the experiment.Conclusions. The study of mechanisms for compensating the liver structure in conditions of long-term exposure to coal-rock dust and sodium fluoride, as well as processes that indicate their failure, and the timing of their occurrence, is of theoretical and practical importance for developing recommendations for the timely prevention and correction of pathological conditions developing in employees of the aluminum and coal industry.The authors declare no conflict of interests.

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