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Acting on the World: Understanding How Agents Use Information to Guide Their Action

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From Animals to Robots and Back: Reflections on Hard Problems in the Study of Cognition

Part of the book series: Cognitive Systems Monographs ((COSMOS,volume 22))

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Abstract

Most animals navigate a dynamic and shifting sea of information provided by their environment, their food or prey and other animals. How do they work out, which pieces of information are the most important or of most interest to them, and gather information on those parts to guide their action later? In this essay, I briefly outline what we already know about how animals use information flexibly and efficiently. I then discuss a few of the unsolved problems relating to how animals collect information by directing their attention or exploration selectively, before suggesting some approaches which might be useful in unravelling these problems.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although animals can generalize somewhat between learned stimuli.

  2. 2.

    Note that while it is easier to think about these processes as sequential, they certainly occur in parallel in nature.

  3. 3.

    That is, interacting with the environment without an immediate goal other than the collection of information.

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Acknowledgments

First, I would like to acknowledge my deep gratitude to Aaron Sloman for many fascinating and stimulating discussions about information processing, evolution and exploration (among many other topics). These conversations have helped me helped me to approach these problems in a new and more productive way. I would also like to thank Nick Hawes, Zoe Demery and Emma Tecwyn for productive discussions on these topics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

    Jackie Chappell

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  1. Jackie Chappell
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Correspondence to Jackie Chappell .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom

    Jeremy L. Wyatt

  2. School of Social Sciences, University of Northampton, Northampton, United Kingdom

    Dean D. Petters

  3. School of Computing, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

    David C. Hogg

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Chappell, J. (2014). Acting on the World: Understanding How Agents Use Information to Guide Their Action. In: Wyatt, J., Petters, D., Hogg, D. (eds) From Animals to Robots and Back: Reflections on Hard Problems in the Study of Cognition. Cognitive Systems Monographs, vol 22. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06614-1_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06614-1_4

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