Ernest 12

Ernest 12  categorizes the entities in its environment based on the possibilities of interaction that they afford, and adjusts its behavior to categories.

Top-left: Ernest in its environment. The "eye" (half-circle) takes the color of the entity that get Ernest's attention at any given time.

Top-right: Ernest's spatial memory. Interactions are localized in space, and Ernest updates their position as he moves. Entities are constructed where interactions overlap. Rectangles and trapezoids represent interactions, circles represent entities.

Bottom: activity trace. Bottom: interactions (rectangles and trapezoids) enacted on the left, in front, or on the right of Ernest. Middle: the motivational value of the enacted interaction represented as a bargraph (green when positive, red when negative). Top: the actions (half-circles (turn), triangles (try to step forward)) and the entities (blue and green circles) learned over time.

In this run, Ernest, learns the "bishop behavior" during the first 50 steps. On steps 78, we introduce two targets in a raw. The spatial memory shows that Ernest interacts with these two targets at the same time. Ernest's spatial memory (associated with its rudimentary attentional system) allows Ernest to focus on one target at a time.

On step 110, we introduce a "wall brick", and Ernest learns that this kind of entity affords the interaction "bumping". Subsequently, when we introduce a target, Ernest will preferably go towards the target than towards the wall brick because it has learned that the targets are edible.

Ernest 12 implements ECA, the Enactive Cognitive Architecture.
(Demo implemented with Ernest r439 and Vacuum r392)