Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

On the Role of Emotion in Embodied Cognitive Architectures: From Organisms to Robots

  • Published:
Cognitive Computation Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The computational modeling of emotion has been an area of growing interest in cognitive robotics research in recent years, but also a source of contention regarding how to conceive of emotion and how to model it. In this paper, emotion is characterized as (a) closely connected to embodied cognition, (b) grounded in homeostatic bodily regulation, and (c) a powerful organizational principle—affective modulation of behavioral and cognitive mechanisms—that is ‘useful’ in both biological brains and robotic cognitive architectures. We elaborate how emotion theories and models centered on core neurological structures in the mammalian brain, and inspired by embodied, dynamical, and enactive approaches in cognitive science, may impact on computational and robotic modeling. In light of the theoretical discussion, work in progress on the development of an embodied cognitive-affective architecture for robots is presented, incorporating aspects of the theories discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The term ‘enactive’ is here meant in the broad sense of viewing cognition as grounded in self-maintenance (cf. e.g., Vernon et al. [77]: “The only condition that is required of an enactive system is effective action: that it permit the continued integrity of the system involved.”), not in the narrower sense involving a specific commitment to autopoietic organization [30].

  2. Such dynamic states might be considered to have a longer temporal trajectory not easily captured by the narrow ‘negative feedback’ sense of homeostasis. The term ‘allostasis’ has been offered to describe more complex regulatory processes which for some advocates of the term constitutes a form of homeostasis, but for others allostasis represents a different type of regulation [72]. Also see Lowe et al. [42] for a discussion.

References

  1. Alexander WH, Sporns O. An embodied model of learning, plasticity, and reward. Adapt Behav. 2002;10(3–4):143–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Arbib M, Fellous J-M. Emotions: From brain to robot. Trend Cognit Sci. 2004;8(12):554–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Barandiaran X, Moreno A. On what makes certain dynamical systems cognitive: A minimally cognitive organization program. Adapt Behav. 2006;14(2):171–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Barandiaran X, Moreno A. Adaptivity: From metabolism to behavior. Adapt Behav. 2008;16:325–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Barnes MB, Beverly JL. Nitric oxide’s role in glucose homeostasis. Am J Physiol Regulat Integr Comp Physiol. 2007;293:R590–1.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Bechara A, Damasio AR. The somatic marker hypothesis: A neural theory of economic decision. Games Econ Behav. 2005;52:336–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Breazeal C. Designing sociable robots. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Breazeal C. Emotion and sociable humanoid robots. Int J Human Comput Interact. 2003;59:119–55.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Brooks RA. Achieving artificial intelligence through building robots. Technical report memo 899, MIT AI Lab; 1986

  10. Brooks RA. Cambrian intelligence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Cañamero L, editor. Proceedings of the symposium on agents that want and like: Motivational and emotional roots of cognition and action. UK: AISB; 2005. ISBN: 1-902956-41-7.

  12. Clark A. Being there. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Clark A. An embodied cognitive science? Trend Cognit Sci. 1999;9:345–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Colombetti G, Thompson E. Enacting emotional interpretations with feelings. Behav Brain Sci. 2005;28:200–1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Colombetti G, Thompson E. The feeling body: Towards an enactive approach to emotion. In: Overton WF, Müller U, Newman JL, editors. Developmental perspectives on embodiment and consciousness. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 2008. p. 45–68.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Craig AD. Interoception: The sense of the physiological condition of the body. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2003;13(4):500–5.

  17. Craig AD. Human feelings: Why are some more aware than others? Trend Cognit Sci. 2004;8(6):239–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Damasio AR. Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: GP Putnam’s Sons; 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Damasio AR. Emotion in the perspective of an integrated nervous system. Brain Res Rev. 1998;26:83–6.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Damasio AR. The feeling of what happens: Body, emotion and the making of consciousness. London: Vintage; 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Damasio AR. Looking for Spinoza: Joy, sorrow and the feeling brain. Orlando, FL: Harcourt; 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Damasio AR. Emotions and feelings: A neurobiological perspective. In Manstead A, Frijda N, Fischer A, editors. Feelings and emotions—The Amsterdam symposium. UK: Cambridge University Press; 2004

  23. Di Paolo EA. Organismically-inspired robotics: Homeostatic adaptation and natural teleology beyond the closed sensorimotor loop. In: Murase K, Asakura T, editors. Dynamical systems approach to embodiment and sociality. Adelaide, Australia: Advanced Knowledge International; 2003. p. 19–42.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Edelman J. The remembered present. New York: Basic Books; 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Ekman P. Universals and cultural differences in facial expression of emotion. In: Cole J, editor. Nebraska symposium on motivation. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press; 1972. p. 207–83.

  26. Ekman P. Basic emotions. In: Dalgleish T, Power M, editors. Handbook of cognition and emotion. Sussex, UK: Wiley; 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Fellous J-M. Neuromodulatory basis of emotion. The Neuroscientist. 1999;5:283–94.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Fellous J-M, Arbib M, editors. Who needs emotions? The brain meets the robot. New York: Oxford University Press; 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Freeman W. How brains make up their minds. New York: Columbia University Press; 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Froese T, Ziemke T. Enactive artificial intelligence. Artif Intel. 2009;173:466–500.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Gibbs R. Embodiment and cognitive science. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Harnad S. Minds, machines, and Searle. J Exp Theoret Artif Intel. 1989;1(1):5–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Harnad S. The symbol grounding problem. Physica D. 1990;42:335–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Hudlicka E, Cañamero L, editors. Architectures for modeling emotion: Cross-disciplinary foundations. Papers from the 2004 AAAI symposium. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press; 2004.

  35. Kelley AE. Neurochemical networks encoding emotion and motivation: An evolutionary perspective. In: Fellous J-M, Arbib MA, editors. Who needs emotions? The brain meets the robot. New York: Oxford University Press; 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Lazarus RS. Emotion and adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press; 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  37. LeDoux JE. The emotional brain. New York: Simon & Schuster; 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  38. LeDoux JE. Emotion circuits in the brain. Annu Rev Neurosci. 2000;23:155–84.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  39. Lewis MD. Bridging emotion theory and neurobiology through dynamic systems modeling. Behav Brain Sci. 2005;28:169–245.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  40. Lowe R, Herrera C, Morse T, Ziemke T. The embodied dynamics of emotion, appraisal and attention. In: Paletta L, Rome E, editors. Attention in cognitive systems. Theories and systems from an interdisciplinary viewpoint. Berlin: Springer; 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Lowe R, Philippe P, Montebelli A, Morse A, Ziemke T. Affective modulation of embodied dynamics. In: The role of emotion in adaptive behaviour and cognitive robotics, Electronic proceedings of SAB workshop, Osaka, Japan; 2008. Available from: http://www.his.se/icea/emotion-workshop/.

  42. Lowe R, Morse A, Ziemke T. An enactive approach for modeling cognition, emotion and autonomy: Predictive regulation at different levels of organizational complexity. Submitted for journal publication.

  43. Lowe R, Humphries M, Ziemke T. The dual-route hypothesis: Evaluating a neurocomputational model of fear conditioning in rats. Connect Sci., accepted for publication (in press).

  44. Lowe R, Morse A, Ziemke T. The Iowa gambling task: Key methodological issues for cognitive robotics to address. (forthcoming).

  45. McFarland D. Guilty robots, happy dogs. New York: Oxford University Press; 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  46. McFarland D, Spier E. Basic cycles, utility and opportunism in self-sufficient robots. Robot Autonom Syst. 1997;20:179–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Melhuish C, Ieropoulos I, Greenman J, Horsfield I. Energetically autonomous robots: Food for thought. Autonom Robot. 2006;21:187–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Meyer J-A, Guillot A, Girard B, Khamassi M, Pirim P, Berthoz A. The Psikharpax project: Towards building an artificial rat. Robot Autonom Syst. 2005;50(4):211–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Moreno A, Etxeberria A, Umerez J. The autonomy of biological individuals and artificial models. BioSystems. 2008;91(2):309–19.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  50. Morse A, Lowe R. Enacting emotions: Somato-sensorimotor knowledge. In: Perception, action and consciousness: Sensorimotor dynamics and dual vision, Bristol, UK; 2007. Available at: http://www.bris.ac.uk/philosophy/department/events/PAC_conference/index.html/Conference.htm/Poster_Announcement.html.

  51. Morse A, Lowe R, Ziemke T. Towards an enactive cognitive architecture. In: Proceedings of the first international conference on cognitive systems, CogSys 2008, Karlsruhe, Germany; April 2008.

  52. Morrison I, Ziemke T. Empathy with computer game characters: A cognitive neuroscience perspective. In: AISB’05: Proceedings of the joint symposium on virtual social agents. UK: AISB; 2005. p. 73–9.

  53. Ortony A, Norman D, Revelle W. Affect and Proto-affect in effective functioning. In: Fellous J-M, Arbib MA, editors. Who need emotions? New York: Oxford University Press; 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Panksepp J. Affective neuroscience: The foundations of human and animal emotions. New York: Oxford University Press; 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  55. Panksepp J. The neurodynamics of emotions: An evolutionary-neurodevelopmental view. In: Lewis MD, Granic I, editors. Emotion, development, and self-organization: Dynamic systems approaches to emotional development. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Panksepp J. Affective consciousness and the origins of human mind: A critical role of brain research on animal emotions. Impuls. 2004;57:47–60.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Panksepp J. Affective consciousness: Core emotional feelings in animals and humans. Conscious Cogn. 2005;14:30–80.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  58. Parisi D. Internal robotics. Connect Sci. 2004;16(4):325–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Pessoa L. On the relationship between emotion and cognition. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2008;9:148–58.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  60. Petta P. The role of emotion in a tractable architecture for situated cognizers. In: Trappl R, Petta P, Payr S, editors. Emotions in humans and artifacts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  61. Pfeifer R, Bongard J. How the body shapes the way we think: A new view of intelligence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  62. Pfeifer R, Scheier C. Understanding intelligence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  63. Phelps E. Emotion and cognition: Insights from studies of the human amygdala. Annu Rev Psychol. 2006;24(57):27–53.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  64. Prescott TJ, Redgrave P, Gurney K. Layered control architectures in robots and vertebrates. Adapt Behav. 1999;7:99–127.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. Prinz JJ. Gut reactions–A perceptual theory of emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  66. Rolls E. The brain and emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  67. Rolls E. Emotion explained. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  68. Seth A. Explanatory correlates of consciousness: Theoretical and computational challenges. Cognit Comput.; this volume. doi:10.1007/s12559-009-9007-x.

  69. Sloman A. Beyond shallow models of emotion. Cognit Process. 2001;2(1):177–98.

    Google Scholar 

  70. Sloman A. How many separately evolved emotional beasties live within us? In: Trappl R, Petta P, Payr S, editors. Emotions in humans and artifacts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2002. p. 35–114.

    Google Scholar 

  71. Steels L, Brooks RA, editors. The artificial life route to artificial intelligence. Building situated embodied agents. New Haven: Lawrence Erlbaum; 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  72. Sterling P. Principles of allostasis: Optimal design, predictive regulation, pathophysiology and rational therapeutics. In: Schulkin J, editor. Allostasis, homeostasis and the costs of adaptation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  73. Thompson E. Mind in life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  74. Trappl R, Petta P, Payr S, editors. Emotions in humans and artifacts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2003.

  75. Varela FJ, Depraz N. At the source of time: Valence and the constitutional dynamics of affect. J. Conscious. Stud.. 2005;12(8–10):61–81.

    Google Scholar 

  76. Varela FJ, Thompson E, Rosch E. The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  77. Vernon D, Metta G, Sandini G. A survey of artificial cognitive systems: Implications for the autonomous development of mental capabilities in computational agents. IEEE Trans Evol Comput. 2007;11(2):151–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  78. Ziemke T. Rethinking grounding. In: Riegler A, Peschl M, von Stein A, editors. Understanding representation in the cognitive sciences. New York: Plenum Press; 1999. p. 177–90.

    Google Scholar 

  79. Ziemke T. Are robots embodied? In: Balkenius C, Zlatev J, Breazeal C, Dautenhahn K, Kozima H, editors. Proceedings of the first international workshop on epigenetic robotics: Modelling cognitive development in robotic system; Lund University cognitive studies, vol. 85, Lund, Sweden; 2001. p. 75–83.

  80. Ziemke T. What’s that thing called embodiment? In: Alterman R, Kirsh D, editors. Proceedings of the 25th annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; 2003. p. 1305–10.

  81. Ziemke T. Embodied AI as science: Models of embodied cognition, embodied models of cognition, or both? In: Iida F, Pfeifer R, Steels L, Kuniyoshi Y, editors. Embodied artificial intelligence. Heidelberg: Springer; 2004. p. 27–36.

    Google Scholar 

  82. Ziemke T. What’s life got to do with it? In: Chella A, Manzotti R, editors. Artificial consciousness. Exeter: Imprint Academic; 2007. p. 48–66.

    Google Scholar 

  83. Ziemke T. The embodied self: Theories, hunches and robot models. J Conscious Stud. 2007;14(7):167–79.

    Google Scholar 

  84. Ziemke T. On the role of emotion in biological and robotic autonomy. BioSystems. 2008;91:401–8.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  85. Ziemke T, Sharkey NE. A stroll through the worlds of robots and animals. Semiotica. 2001;134(1–4):701–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  86. Ziemke T, Frank R, Zlatev J, editors. Body, language and mind. Volume 1: Embodiment. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter; 2007.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by a European Commission grant to the FP6 project “Integrating Cognition, Emotion and Autonomy” (ICEA, FP6-IST-027819, www.ICEAproject.eu) as part of the European Cognitive Systems initiative. Much of this paper has resulted from discussions with other members of the project consortium. The authors would also like to thank the reviewers, Kevin Gurney, Amir Hussain, and India Morrison for useful comments on a draft version of this paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Informatics Research Centre, School of Humanities & Informatics, University of Skövde, PO Box 408, 54128, Skövde, Sweden

    Tom Ziemke & Robert Lowe

Authors
  1. Tom Ziemke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Robert Lowe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tom Ziemke.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ziemke, T., Lowe, R. On the Role of Emotion in Embodied Cognitive Architectures: From Organisms to Robots. Cogn Comput 1, 104–117 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-009-9012-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-009-9012-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation