Utilizing Emotions in Autonomous Robots: An Enactive Approach

In this chapter, we present a minimalist approach to utilizing the computational principles of affective processes and emotions for autonomous robotics applications. The focus of this paper is on the presentation of this framework in reference to preservation of agent autonomy across levels of cognitive-affective competences. This approach views autonomy in reference to (i) embodied (e.g. homeostatic), and (ii) dynamic (e.g. neural-dynamic) processes, required to render adaptive such cognitive-affective competences. We hereby focus on bridging bottom-up (standard autonomous robotics) and top-down (psychology-based dimensional theoretic) modelling approaches. Our enactive approach we characterize according to bi-directional grounding (inter-dependent bottom-up and top-down regulation). As such, from an emotions theory perspective, ‘enaction’ is best understood as an embodied and dynamic appraisal perspective. We attempt to clarify our approach with relevant case studies and comparison to other existing approaches in the modelling literature.