Control States and Complete Agent Architectures

This paper presents a developing concept of mind defined in terms of external and internal niches. This perspective on mind is described primarily in terms of the niche space of control states and the design space of processes that may support such phenomena. A developing agent architecture, that can support motivation and other control states associated with mind, is presented. Different aspects of agent research are discussed in terms of three categories of agents. Each agent category is characterized primarily in terms of their task‐related competencies and internal behaviors and discussed in terms of our taxonomy of control states. The concept of complete agents is then introduced. Goals are described in terms of their generation across a number of computational layers. Experimental analysis is provided on how these differing forms of behaviors can be cleanly integrated. This leads into a discussion on the nature of motivational states and the mechanisms used for making decisions and managing the sometimes‐competitive nature of processes internal to a complex agent. The difficulty of evaluating complete agents is discussed from a number of perspectives. The paper concludes by considering future directions related to the computational modeling of emotions and the concept of synthetic mind.