The PSI theory is a theory of human action regulation by psychologist
Dietrich Dörner [1, 2]. It is an attempt to create a
body-mind link for virtual agents. It aims at the integration of cognitive
processes, emotions and motivation. This theory is unique in such a way that
emotions are not explicitly defined but emerges from modulation of perception,
action-selection, planning and memory access. Emotions
become apparent when the agents interact with the environment and display
expressive behavior, resulting in a configuration that resembles emotional
episodes in biological agents. The agents react to the environment by forming
memories, expectations and immediate evaluations.
PSI agents possess a number of modulators and built-in motivators that
lie within a range of intensities. These parameters combined to produce complex
behavior that can be interpreted as being emotional. Additionally, by regulating these parameters,
the agent is able to adapt itself to the different circumstances in the
environment. This theory has been
applied to different virtual agent simulations in different type of
environments [3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and has proven to be a
promising theory for creation of biologically plausible agents.
More information can be found at http://web.uni-bamberg.de/ppp/insttheopsy/
(In German but there are some papers in English). Some simulation software is
also available for download from this site.
References:
[1] Dörner, D.: The mathematics of emotions. In Frank Detje, D.D., Schaub, H., eds.:
Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Cognitive Modeling,
[2] Katrin Hille, A Theory on
Emotion, http://web.uni-bamberg.de/ppp/insttheopsy/dokumente/Hille_A_theory_of_emotion.pdf
[3] D. Dörner and K. Hille. Articial souls: Motivated emotional robots. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, pages 3828–3832, 1995.
[4] Bartl, C., Dörner, D.: Comparing
the behavior of psi with
human behavior in the biolab
game. In Ritter, F.E., Young, R.M., eds.: Proceedings of the Second
International Conference on Cognitive Modeling,