Who Needs Emotions? The Brain Meets the Robot

222 robots
Central
Perception Action
Processing
Meta-management
(reflective processes)
Deliberative
reasoning
ALARMS
Reactive mechanisms
Figure 8.2. This elaborates the CogAff schema of Figure 8.1 to include
reactive alarms that detect situations where rapid global redirection of
processing is required. There may be many varieties with different input and
output connections.
mechanisms for constructing and comparing alternative possible multistep
futures. Alternatively, they may be deliberative in the sense of using explicit
hypothetical representations of alternative possible futures, predictions,
or explanations; comparing them; and selecting a preferred option.
This requires highly specialized and biologically costly mechanisms, including
short-term memory for temporary structures of varying complexity.
Very few animals seem to have these deliberative mechanisms, though
simple reactive mechanisms in which two inconsistent reactions are simultaneously
activated and then one selected by a competitive mechanism
could be described as “proto-deliberative.” Another subdivision among
central processes concerns meta-management mechanisms, which use architectural
features that allow internal processes to be monitored, categorized
(using an appropriate ontology for information-processing states and
processes), evaluated, and in some cases controlled or modulated. This requires
the “meta-semantic” capability to represent and reason about states
and processes with semantic content.
These are not mutually exclusive categories since ultimately all processes
have to be implemented in reactive mechanisms. Moreover, metamanagement
processes may be either reactive or deliberative.