Hermeneutic resonance in animats and art

One major criticism of direct or active perception (and other forms of embodied action) from the perspective of cognitive psycology is that, according to common sense, there are some actions that require strictly symbolic information - for example, to stop a car in response to a red traffic light - which fall outside the realm of a perception-action cycle. Although such cognitive responses are not necessarily a goal of artificial life, they must necessarily be included within the embodied paradigm if it is to encompass the cognisant individual, the self-aware individual, or, potentially, the conscious individual. This paper will address the question, 'can an animat appreciate art?' Although this may seem very different to the example of a prosaic response to a traffic light, it will be argued that a common framework for establishing the meaning of an object is needed. It will also be argued that clarification to previous philosophical models of artistic engagement is required: in particular that the process of understanding is not a dialogue between an autopoietic artwork and animat, but that there is either a unity of object (artwork-animat) which becomes self-maintaining, or a more classical Gibsonian interpretation as a fixed set of affordances offered by an object to the subject, both of which lead to the conclusion that the process of understanding becomes a resonance in the unity or animat

A Conceptual Model of Exploration Wayfinding: An Integrated Theoretical Framework and Computational Methodology

This thesis is an attempt to integrate contending cognitive approaches to modeling wayfinding behavior. The primary goal is to create a plausible model for exploration tasks within indoor environments. This conceptual model can be extended for practical applications in the design, planning, and Social sciences. Using empirical evidence a cognitive schema is designed that accounts for perceptual and behavioral preferences in pedestrian navigation. Using this created schema, as a guiding framework, the use of network analysis and space syntax act as a computational methods to simulate human exploration wayfinding in unfamiliar indoor environments. The conceptual model provided is then implemented in two ways. First of which is by updating an existing agent-based modeling software directly. The second means of deploying the model is using a spatial interaction model that distributed visual attraction and movement permeability across a graph-representation of building floor plans

Hermeneutic Resonance in Animats and Art

Abstract. One major criticism of direct or active perception (and other forms of embodied action) from the perspective of cognitive psycology is that, according to common sense, there are some actions that require strictly symbolic information — for example, to stop a car in response to a red traffic light — which fall outside the realm of a perception-action cycle. Although such cognitive responses are not necessarily a goal of artificial life, they must necessarily be included within the embodied paradigm if it is to encompass the cognisant individual, the self-aware individual, or, potentially, the conscious individual. This paper will address the question, ‘can an animat appreciate art? ’ Although this may seem very different to the example of a prosaic response to a traffic light, it will be argued that a common framework for establishing the meaning of an object is needed. It will also be argued that clarification to previous philosophical models of artistic engagement is required: in particular that the process of understanding is not a dialogue between an autopoietic artwork and animat, but that there is either a unity of object (artworkanimat) which becomes self-maintaining, or a more classical Gibsonian interpretation as a fixed set of affordances offered by an object to the subject, both of which lead to the conclusion that the process of understanding becomes a resonance in the unity or animat