A COGNITIVE ARCHITECTURE WITH INCREMENTAL LEVELS OF MACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS INSPIRED BY COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

Abstract

The main motivation for this work is to investigate the advantages provided by machine consciousness, while in the control of software agents. In order to pursue this goal, we developed a cognitive architecture, with different levels of machine consciousness, targeting the control of artificial creatures. As a standard guideline, we applied cognitive neuroscience concepts to incrementally develop the cognitive architecture, following the evolutionary steps taken by the animal brain. The triune brain theory proposed by MacLean, together with Arrabale's "ConsScale", serve as roadmaps to achieve each developmental stage, while iCub — a humanoid robot and its simulator — serve as a platform for the experiments. A completely codelet-based system "Core" has been implemented, serving the whole architecture.