Lifelong Learning with the Feedback-loop between Emotions and Actions via Internal Reward

Abstract

We propose a cognitive model where an autonomous agent incorporates a cybernetic feedback-loop between emotional states and activity-selection mechanism via internal reward. In our model, emotions play a crucial role in providing motivation for agents to change activities and thereby promote continuous learning. We show that lifelong learning emerges as the emotions of the agent, decide the activity-selection via internal reward. We qualitatively analyze the emotional dynamics, exhibited by the proposed cognitive system in a minimalistic environment. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 9th Annual International Conference on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures.