Psi-theory, developed by Dietrich Dörner at the University of Bamberg, is a systemic psychological theory covering human action regulation, intention selection and emotion. It models the human mind as an information processing agent, controlled by a set of basic physiological, social and cognitive drives. The theory suggests that perceptual and cognitive processing are directed and modulated by these drives, which allow the autonomous establishment and pursuit of goals in an open environment. Next to the motivational and emotional system, Psi-theory suggests a neuro-symbolic model of representation, which encodes semantic relationships in a hierarchical spreading activation network. The representations are grounded in sensors and actuators, and are acquired by autonomous exploration.
Main assumptions The concepts of Psi-theory may be reduced to a set of basic assumptions. Psi-theory describes a cognitive system as a structure consisting of relationships and dependencies that is designed to maintain a homeostatic balance in the face of a dynamic environment.
Representation Psi-theory suggests hierarchical networks of nodes as a universal mode of representation for declarative, procedural and tacit knowledge. These nodes may encode localist and distributed representations. The activity of the system is modeled using modulated and directional spreading of activation within these networks.
Plans, episodes, situations and objects are described with a semantic network formalism that relies on a fixed number of pre-defined link types, which especially encode causal/sequential ordering, and partonomic hierarchies (the theory specifies four basic link-types). Special nodes (representing neural circuits) control the spread of activation and the forming of temporary or permanent associations and their dissociations.
Memory At any time, the Psi agent possesses a world model (situation image). This is extrapolated into a branching expectation horizon (consisting of anticipated developments and active plans). In addition, the working memory also contains a hypothetical world model that is used for comparisons during recognition, and for planning. The situation image is gradually transferred into an episodic memory (protocol). By selective decay and reinforcement, portions of this long-term memory provide automated behavioral routines, and elements for plans (procedural memory). The atoms of plans and behavior sequences are triplets of a (partial, hierarchical) situation description, forming a condition, an operator (a hierarchical action description) and an expected outcome of the operation as another (partial, hierarchical) situation description. Object descriptions (mainly declarative) are also part of long-term memory and the product of perceptual processes and affordances. Situations and operators in long-term memory may be associated with motivational relevance, which is instrumental in retrieval and reinforcement. Operations on memory content are subject to emotional modulation.
Perception Perception is based on conceptual hypotheses, which guide the recognition of objects, situations and episodes. Hypothesis based perception ("HyPercept") is understood as a bottom-up (data-driven and context-dependent) cuing of hypotheses that is interleaved with a top-down verification. The acquisition of schematic hierarchical descriptions and their gradual adaptation and revision can be described as assimilation and accommodation. Hypothesis based perception is a universal principle that applies to visual perception, auditory perception, discourse interpretation and even memory interpretation. Perception is subject to emotional modulation.
Drives The activity of the system is directed towards the satisfaction of a finite set of primary, pre-defined drives (or urges). All goals are situations that are associated (by learning) with the satisfaction of an urge, or situations that are instrumental in achieving such a situation (this also includes abstract problem solving, aesthetics, the maintenance of social relationships and altruistic behavior). These urges reflect demands of the system: a mismatch between a target value of a demand and the current value results in an urge signal, which is proportional to the deviation, and which might give rise to a motive. There are three categories of drives:
Physiological drives (such as food, water, maintenance of physical integrity), which are relieved by the consumption of matching resources and increased by the metabolic processes of the system, or inflicted damage (integrity). Social drives (affiliation). The demand for affiliation is an individual variable and adjusted through early experiences. It needs to be satisfied in regular intervals by external legitimacy signals (provided by other agents as a signal of acceptance and/or gratification) or internal legitimacy signals (created by the fulfillment of social norms). It is increased by social frustration (anti-legitimacy signals) or supplicative signals (demands of other agents for help, which create both a suffering by frustration of the affiliation urge, and a promise of gratification). Cognitive drives (reduction of uncertainty, and competence). Uncertainty reduction is maintained through exploration and frustrated by mismatches with expectations and/or failures to create anticipations. Competence consists of task specific competence (and can be acquired through exploration of a task domain) and general competence (which measures the ability to fulfill the demands in general). The competence drive is frustrated by actual and anticipated failures to reach a goal. The cognitive drives are subject to individual variability and need regular satisfaction. Changes in systemic demands are reflected in a "pleasure" or "distress signal", which is used as for reinforcement learning of associations between demands and goals, as well as episodic sequences and behavior scripts leading up to these goals.
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