Reactivity of Subsumption Architecture

Reactivity of the Subsumption Architecture

This is the strongest and most compelling property of the subsumption architecture. Because there is no internal representation of state or reasoning about it, the reaction time of the subsumption agent is limited only by the time it takes to sense a change in the world and to direct its actuators; in other words, response to stimuli is reflexive rather than deliberate. Because the hormonal and planning modifications are distributed throughout the architecture, they do not adversely effect reactivity although Brooks suggests that the hormonal system may actually damp responses to high frequency oscillations in the environment, important for coherence.


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