Issue: Psychological or Neurobiological Foundation
Psychological and Neurobiological Validity of Subsumption
Although Brooks identifies no particular species for the
agents that have been
built within the
subsumption architecture,
the ideas behind the architecture
were
inspired by insects.
Specifically, Brooks contends that the model was
inspired by a consideration of evolution, that nature built increasingly
complex agents that all interacted in the
complex and
dynamic world.
Furthermore, the
distributed organization
of the architecture, activation
spreading, and network concepts all have biological feasibility.
The process Brooks describes for regulating goal interaction was based on
hormonal activation in lobsters.
Mataric says that the distributed spatial representation, map learning, and
the planning architecture itself are consistent with the physiological data
taken from rat navigation tasks. Additionally, the landmark finding
procedure is based on principles of human landmark identification and
navigation.
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Current Location: Subsumption - Issues - Psychological Validity