UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
		 COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM


	   "Computational Memory Architectures for Autobiographic
		       and Narrative Virtual Agents"

			     Wan Ching Ho
		       School of Computer Science
		       University of Hertfordshire

			2 November 2005 (Wednesday)

			  Lecture Theatre E350
		       Hatfield, College Lane Campus
			       3 - 4 pm

	       Coffee/tea and biscuits will be available.
			 [Catering Permitting]

		    Everyone is Welcome to Attend
			  [Space Permitting]


Abstract:


Humans and some animals naturally possess sophisticated memory systems
to help them to do reasoning, learning and also sharing information
to others.  However it has been a difficult challenge to model the
characteristics of such a memory system in the research fields of both
Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life.

In this talk I will introduce several computational memory
architectures I developed in my PhD research for autobiographic and
narrative virtual agents. Through enhancing a reactive autonomous agent
control architecture, agents can retrieve meaningful information from
their dynamic memories in order to be adaptive and survive in their
environments. The memory architectures are also capable to organize and
filter significant events which originate from agents' own experiences
as well as ''stories'' told by other agents.

To validate the memory architectures, both simple and complex Artificial
Life type of virtual environments with static as well as dynamic resources
distribution were implemented that provide events with different levels
of complexity and affect the physiological variables of the agents. The
performance of various types of agents with different memory control
architectures are first compared in single-agent experiments. Each
agent's behavior is observed and analyzed quantitatively together with
its lifespan and physiological states measurements. Group performance
with and without communication are measured in experiments with multiple
autobiographic agents. Results confirm the research hypothesis that
autobiographic memory can prove beneficial, resulting in increases in the
lifespan of an autonomous, autobiographic, minimal agent. Furthermore,
higher communication frequency brings better group performance for
Long-term Autobiographic Memory agents in multi-agent experiments. An
interface has been developed to visualize agents' dynamic autobiographic
memory to help human observers to understand the underlying memory
processes.

Finally I will talk about the potential applications and areas for future
work.  

This doctoral work in the Adaptive Systems Research Group was supervised 
by Profs. K. Dautenhahn and C. L. Nehaniv.
--
Hertfordshire Computer Science Research Colloquium
http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~nehaniv/colloq