The Integration and Control of Behaviour: Insights from Neuroscience and AI

Abstract

Clues to the way behaviour is integrated and controlled in the human mind have emerged from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. The picture that is emerging mirrors solutions (driven primarily by engineering concerns) to similar problems in the rather different domains of mobile robotics and intelligent agents in artificial intelligence (AI). This chapter looks in detail at the relationship between a psychological theory of willed and automatic control of behaviour, the Norman and Shallice framework, and three types of engineering-based theory in AI. As well as being a promising basis for a large-scale model of cognition, the Norman and Shallice framework presents an interesting example both of apparent theoretical convergence between AI and empirical psychology, and of the way in which theoretical work in both fields can benefit from interaction between them.