Artificial Motivation for Cognitive Software Agents

Natural selection has imbued biological agents with motivations moving them to act for survival and reproduction, as well as to learn so as to support both. Artificial agents also require motivations to act in a goal-directed manner and to learn appropriately into various memories. Here we present a biologically inspired motivation system, based on feelings (including emotions) integrated within the LIDA cognitive architecture at a fundamental level. This motivational system, operating within LIDA’s cognitive cycle, provides a repertoire of motivational capacities operating over a range of time scales of increasing complexity. These include alarms, appraisal mechanisms, appetence and aversion, and deliberation and planning.