Temporal representations for synthetic characters

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-93).Inspired by recent work in ethology and animal training, we integrate representations for time and rate into a behavior-based architecture for autonomous virtual creatures. The resulting computational model of affect and action selection allows these creatures to discover and refine their understanding of apparent temporal causality relationships which may or may not involve self-action. The fundamental action selection choice that a creature must make in order to satisfy its internal needs is whether to explore, react or exploit. In this architecture, that choice is informed by an understanding of apparent temporal causality, the representation for which is integrated into the representation for action. The ability to accommodate changing ideas about causality allows the creature to exist in and adapt to a dynamic world. Not only is such a model suitable for computational systems, but its derivation from biological models suggests that it may also be useful for gaining a new perspective on learning in biological systems. The implementation of a complete character built using this architecture is able to reproduce a variety of conditioning phenomena, as well as learn using a training technique used with live animals.by Robert Carrington Burke.S.M

Observation-based expectation generation and response for behavior-based artificial creatures

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-69).This thesis seeks to address the incorporation of a low-level cognitive ability into reactive, behavior-based artificial intelligence architectures. Specifically, it addresses the need to generate short-term, observation-based expectations about the world and react appropriately to the violation of those expectations. In it I discuss the motivation for incorporating expectations into a reactive behavior-based architecture, outline the qualitative properties of expectations and the conditions under which they may be violated, propose a model for generating expectations and responding to their violation, detail one implementation of such a model, and finally propose this work as a starting point from which future work on higher-order cognition and behavior might begin.by Christopher John Kline.S.M

Growing up virtual : the computational lessons of development

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2004.Page 205 blank.Includes bibliographical references (p. [197]-204).Cognitive development is one of nature's most important mechanisms for creating robustly adaptive intelligent creatures. From felids to oscines, developing animals are capable of learning in adverse environments with a reliability that often outpaces the current state-of-the-art in artificial intelligence (AI) The purpose of this thesis, therefore, is to examine how insights from cognitive development might be applied to the design of AI architectures. Starting with a targeted review of the ethological literature, I identify the key computational lessons of development, the fundamental conceptual insights that suggest intriguing new strategies for behavioral organization. These insights are then employed in the design of a developmental behavior architecture in which a hierarchical motivation-based behavior system is coupled to a distributed set of domain-specific learning tools. The architecture is deployed in a synthetic character (Hektor the mouse) whose challenge is to learn to play a competitive card matching game successfully against a human user. Evaluation of Hektor's performance on this task, at both qualitative and quantitative levels of description, reveal that the developmental architecture is capable of surmounting complex learning objectives in a novel and efficient manner. I conclude that the architecture presented here represents a valuable starting point for further consideration of developmental design principles.by Derek Eugen Lyons.S.M

Paying attention to what's important : using focus of attention to improve unsupervised learning

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1994.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-150).by Leonard Newton Foner.M.S

Using an ethologically-inspired model to learn apparent temporal causality for planning in synthetic creatures

Inspired by recent work in ethology and animal training, we integrate representations for time and rate into a behaviorbased architecture for autonomous virtual creatures. The resulting computational model of affect and action selection allows creatures to discover and refine their understanding of apparent temporal causality relationships which may or may not involve self-action. The fundamental action selection choice that a creature must make in order to satisfy its internal needs is whether to explore, react or exploit. In this architecture, that choice is informed by an understanding of apparent temporal causality, the representation for which is integrated into the representation for action. The ability to accommodate changing ideas about causality allows the creature to exist in and adapt to a dynamic world. Not only is such a model suitable for computational systems, but its derivation from biological models suggests that it may also be useful for gaining a new perspective on learning in biological systems. The implementation of a complete character built using this architecture is able to reproduce a variety of conditioning phenomena, as well as learn in real-time using a training technique used with live animals

Tartu Ülikooli toimetised. Tööd semiootika alalt. 1964-1992. 0259-4668

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Osprey involvements : historical animal geographies of extinction and return

This thesis argues that humans and ospreys in Scotland are materially, bodily and ethically involved with one another. It follows that a separate human or osprey history of species conservation is inadequate. Focused primarily through the entwined experiences of birds and people on Speyside, I examine the unfolding of osprey-human relationships with particular attention to the agency and capacities of nonhuman animals as animals: with geographies and lives of their own. Drawing on the scholarship of Tim Ingold, Giles Deleuze and Donna Haraway, I consider the dwelling, the co-becoming, and the zones of attachment between human and osprey subjects. At the heart of this project has been an investigation of the relationship between the historical and geographical conditions within which osprey life has flourished on its return from extinction in Scotland, and the possibilities for osprey nature that emerge from such conditions. I offer a ‘site ontology’ of osprey involvements, each ‘site’ comprising a material, bodily and ethical event of agency, subjectivity and composition. Often running in parallel to each other, such sites emphasise differentiations of osprey life: their situation within the militarised biopolitics of bird protection and ‘Operation Osprey’; negotiations of avian-human proximity and distances; their nesting geographies amidst the experimental attempts to restore a diminished community to its former range; and the nature of avian existence emerging in the wake of a return from extinction. Drawing on an array of archival material – occasionally supplemented with oral history, avian science and encounters in the field – the thesis proposes a lively historical geography of animal involvement

Producing Affection : Affect and Mediated Intimacy in Pokémon

Pokémon is a global multimedia franchise formed around a core series of videogames and a variety of characters to collect, learn about, and play with. Throughout its decades of development, Pokémon has grown into a media mix comprising of digital and analog games, animations, comics, toys, and a plethora of branded merchandize, all centering on the Pokémon characters and the audience’s relationship with them. In this thesis, I explore how affection is formed and distributed in Pokémon. I view the relationship with Pokémon characters as a form of mediated intimacy, theorizing it as feelings of affection and closeness expressed through and aimed at technology. Through this, I discuss how technological and fantastical bodies wield agency and actively participate in the formation of everyday affects. By drawing primarily on game studies and affect studies, I develop an interdisciplinary method for playing and reading media texts for their affects and use it to analyze the media mix of Pokémon and the affective relations therein. I focus primarily on the Pokémon videogames that serve as the core product of the entire media mix. I examine what it means to construct an entire media mix based on videogames and play and suggest this as a key interpretive arrangement for understanding the mediated intimacy of Pokémon. This study presents the mediated intimacy of Pokémon as the result of the ludic and technological foundations of the Pokémon media mix, at the heart of which is the role-playing form of the original videogames and the way they have positioned audiences as participants and characters in the world of Pokémon. In this playful environment that overlaps fiction and everyday reality, the media mix guides its players to conduct a form of affective labor to access and traverse the textual whole of Pokémon and furthermore aligns this effort with the diegetic theme of caretaking as captured on the transmedia bodies of Pokémon. Additionally, this work contributes to the theorization and rethinking of intimacies by exploring affection in human and non-human networks as an entanglement of biological and technological actors.Tuotettua kiintymystä. Pokémonin affekti ja medioitu intiimiys Pokémon on globaali monimediakokonaisuus. Sen keskiössä on joukko videopelejä sekä niiden hahmoja, joita kerätään, joista opitaan ja joiden kanssa leikitään. Pokémonista on vuosikymmenten mittaan kasvanut mediatuotteiden rypäs, media mix: monista tuote- ja julkaisukanavista koostuva kokonaisuus, joka sisältää digitaalisia ja analogisia pelejä, animaatioita, sarjakuvia, leluja ja brändituotteita, joissa kaikissa korostuvat Pokémon-hahmot sekä yleisön suhde niihin. Väitöskirjassani tarkastelen, miten kiintymystä rakennetaan ja levitetään Pokémonissa. Tutkin Pokémon-hahmoihin muodostettuja suhteita medioidun intiimiyden käsitteen kautta. Tutkimuksessani suhteet näyttäytyvät kiintymyksellisten tunteiden tiivistyminä sekä läheisyytenä, jota ilmaistaan teknologian avulla ja sitä kohtaan. Näin tarkastelen, miten teknologisten sekä fantastisten kehojen toimijuus näkyy arkipäiväisten affektien muodostumisessa. Ammentamalla pelitutkimuksesta ja affektitutkimuksesta kehitän monitieteisen metodin mediatekstien pelaamiseen ja lukemiseen, ja käytän sitä Pokémonin media mixin, sen affektien ja sen piirissä muodostettujen kiintymyssuhteiden analysointiin. Keskityn erityisesti Pokémon-videopeleihin, jotka toimivat koko media mixin ydintuotteena. Tutkin, miten Pokémonin media mix on rakennettu ensisijaisesti pelilliselle ja leikilliselle pohjalle, ja ehdotan tätä tulkintamallia keskeiseksi Pokémonin medioidun intiimiyden ymmärtämiselle. Tutkimuksen tuloksena esitän Pokémonin medioidun intiimiyden muodostuvan Pokémonin media mixin leikillisistä ja teknologisista juurista, joiden perustana on alkuperäisten Pokémon-videopelien roolipelillinen rakenne sekä se, miten sen avulla pelaajat on asemoitu hahmoiksi Pokémonin maailmaan. Fiktiota ja todellisuutta sekoittavassa leikillisessä ympäristössä Pokémonin media mix ohjaa pelaajia hoivan ja huolenpidon teemojen kautta tekemään tunnetyötä tuoteperheen mediatekstien parissa ja piirtää tämän työn tulokset Pokémon-hahmojen monimediakehoille. Lisäksi väitöstutkimukseni osallistuu intiimiyden laajempaan teoretisointiin ja uudelleenmäärittelyyn tarkastelemalla elollisten ja leikillisesti elävien toimijoiden suhteita biologisena ja teknologisena yhteenliittymän

Using adaptation and goal context to automatically generate individual personalities for virtual characters

Personality is a key component of characters that inhabit immersive virtual environments, such as games and virtual agent applications. In order to be distinguishable from other characters in the environment, each character should have its own personality in the form of different observable behaviour, not solely in its physical appearance or animation. Previous work in this field has mostly relied on time-consuming, handcrafted characters and static, trait-based approaches to personality. Our goal is a method to develop complex, individual personalities without handcrafting every behaviour. Unlike most implemented versions of personality theories, cognitive-social theories of personality address how personality is developed and adapts throughout childhood and over our lifetimes. Cognitive-social theories also emphasise the importance of situations in determining how we behave. From this basis, we believe that personality should be individual, adaptive, and based on context. Characters in current state-of-the-art games and virtual environments do not demonstrate all of these features without extensive handcrafting. We propose a model where personality influences both decision-making and evaluation of reward. Characters use their past experiences in the form of simple somatic markers, or gut-instinct, to make decisions; and determine rewards based on their own personal goals, rather than via external feedback. We evaluated the model by implementation of a simple game and tested it using quantitative criteria, including a purpose-designed individuality measure. Results indicate that, although characters are given the same initial personality template, it is possible to develop different personalities (in the form of behaviour) based on their unique experiences in the environment and relationships with other characters. This work shows a way forward for more automated development of personalities that are individual, context-aware and adapt to users and the environment