Towards a Physiological Model of Emotions: First Steps

Architectures for Modeling Emotion: Cross-Disciplinary Foundations

Volume

Papers from the 2004 AAAI Spring Symposium

Contents

This paper presents the Physiological Model of Emotions. This model is our first step towards dealing with intelligence from a biological point of view. The behavior of each component is evaluated in an independent form thus avoiding abstractions that do not resemble the body’s functioning. Therefore, the Physiological Model of Emotions contains a simplified organism including only a restrict group of organs and tissues constantly generating different stimuli and acting as generator of intentions. The model also differs from cognitive approaches and considers a restricted set of emotional states with significantly different physiologic manifestations in the body influencing the decision-making. The small set of organs can produce different physiological states when the organism is eating, running, or showing some specific emotional state. We use, as a case-study, a scenario capable of offering the necessary resources to the survival of the agents who live there.