Action-selection in hamsterdam: lessons from ethology
SAB94 Proceedings of the third international conference on Simulation of adaptive behavior : from animals to animats 3: from animals to animats 3
Layered control architectures in robots and vertebrates
Adaptive Behavior
Adaptive Behavior - Animals, Animats, Software Agents, Robots, Adaptive Systems
Distributed action selection by a brainstem neural substrate: an embodied evaluation
SAB'06 Proceedings of the 9th international conference on From Animals to Animats: simulation of Adaptive Behavior
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Neurobehavioral data from intact, decerebrate, and neonatal rats suggests that the reticular formation provides a brainstem substrate for action selection in the vertebrate central nervous system. In this article, Kilmer, McCulloch and Blum's (1969) landmark reticular formation model (see also Kilmer, 1997) is described and re-evaluated, both in simulation and, for the first time, as a mobile robot con troller. Particular model configurations are found to provide effective action selection mechanisms in a robot survival task using either simulated or physical robots. The model's competence is dependent on the organization of afferents from model sensory systems, and a genetic algorithm search identi fied a class of afferent configurations which have long survival times. The results support our proposal that the reticular formation evolved to provide effective arbitration between innate behaviors and, with the forebrain basal ganglia, may constitute the integrative, "centrencephalic" core of vertebrate brain architecture. Additionally, the results demonstrate that the Kilmer et al. model provides an alternative form of robot controller to those usually considered in the adaptive behavior literature.