Title: Modelling basic needs as agent motivations

Authors: Nikos Avradinis; Themis Panayiotopoulos; George Anastassakis

Addresses: Information Systems Lab – Knowledge Engineering Working Group, Department of Informatics, University of Piraeus, 80, Karaoli and Dimitriou Street, 185 34 Piraeus, Greece ' Information Systems Lab – Knowledge Engineering Working Group, Department of Informatics, University of Piraeus, 80, Karaoli and Dimitriou Street, 185 34 Piraeus, Greece ' Information Systems Lab – Knowledge Engineering Working Group, Department of Informatics, University of Piraeus, 80, Karaoli and Dimitriou Street, 185 34 Piraeus, Greece

Abstract: Any autonomous agent behaviour generation mechanism should incorporate as a core module, a source of internal motivation that functions as a start point for agent behaviour to commence. Intelligent virtual agents are typically respondent to external stimuli, however, their behaviour becomes repetitive and trivial when these stimuli are missing. We argue that it is necessary for virtual agents to be equipped with intrinsic motivations that energise and direct their behaviour, in order to function in a coherent and believable way. Adopting the general principles of hierarchical motivation theories, in the current work, we attempt to model physiological needs as the lowest and basic level of motivations, in a layered motivational architecture. Based on readings from physiology, we present the mechanisms underlying the function of four basic needs and propose a model that allows the incorporation of plausible human-like needs in an intelligent virtual agent.

Keywords: motivated agents; intelligent virtual agents; intelligent agents; computational modelling; physiological needs; intrinsic motivation; believable agents; biologically inspired agents; affective behaviour; affective agents; multi-agent systems; MAS; agent-based systems.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCISTUDIES.2013.054775

International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies, 2013 Vol.2 No.1, pp.52 - 75

Received: 04 Aug 2012
Accepted: 02 Feb 2013
Published online: 19 Jul 2014 *

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