Hedonic quality or reward? A study of basic pleasure in homeostasis and decision making of a motivated autonomous robot. (October 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lewis, Matthew; Cañamero, Lola
• Other Names: Lowe Robert guest-editor.; Barakova Emilia guest-editor.; Billing Erik guest-editor.; Broekens Joost guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Adaptive behavior. Volume 24:Number 5(2016)
• Page Start: 267
• Page End: 291
• Publication Date: 2016-10
• Subjects: Action selection -- embodied autonomous robots -- homeostasis -- hormonal modulation -- motivation and emotion -- pleasure; Animal behavior -- Periodicals; Animals -- Adaptation -- Periodicals; Adaptability (Psychology) -- Periodicals; Adaptation, Psychological -- Periodicals; Artificial intelligence -- Periodicals; 591.5
• DOI: 10.1177/1059712316666331
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1741-2633

Abstract

We present a robot architecture and experiments to investigate some of the roles that pleasure plays in the decision making (action selection) process of an autonomous robot that must survive in its environment. We have conducted three sets of experiments to assess the effect of different types of pleasure—related versus unrelated to the satisfaction of physiological needs—under different environmental circumstances. Our results indicate that pleasure, including pleasure unrelated to need satisfaction, has value for homeostatic management in terms of improved viability and increased flexibility in adaptive behavior.