Glossary
The Behavioral Logic glossary is a work in progress to rigorously define core terminology across disciplinary boundaries including computer science, neuroscience, psychology and behavioral sciences.
A
- Abuse
- Arbitrary or excessive unpleasantness that can lead to depression.
- Abort
- Halting the execution of a plan before completion due to observed divergence from predicted results.
- Action
- Initiating a physical, chemical, electrical, or behavioral change.
- Adulthood
- The period of time in creatures with conditioned behaviors after initial variation of behavior is significantly reduced.
- Attraction
- The increase in probability of behaviors associated with pleasantness that occurs as a part of operant conditioning.
Aversion
The decrease in probability of behaviors associated with unpleasantness that occurs as a part of operant conditioning.
B
- Bad habit
- A Harmful conditioned behavior acquired by insufficient or anomalous experience such as abuse or spoiling.
- Behavior
- A property of a thing where a set of conditions results in an action. A cause and effect relation for a particular medium.
Behavior: Conditions -> Thing -> Action
- Behavior Table
- A group of situations and associated actions.
- Belief
- Information that associates an initial situation and an action to a consequent situation.
- Benefit
- The improvement of a goal's chance of success. (Antonym: harm.)
C
- Childhood
- The initial period of time during operant conditioning before adequate experience is acquired to reduce large variations in behavior.
- Classical conditioning
- The association of feelings to previously objective conditions.
- Condition
- A single boolean (true or false) datum indicating the presence or absence of some quality of the environment relevant to the goal of an intelligent creature.
- Conditioned behavior
- A type of intelligent behavior that is improved through the process of operant conditioning.
- Consciousness
- The ability for a creature to predict consequences and evaluate imaginary situations.
- Creature
- A thing that exhibits intelligent behavior.
- Why creature? I had to call it something. Agent is commonly used in computer science and organism in biological science to but I wanted a term works for both. The root meaning in latin means "created" and I think that applies to natural or artificial intelligent creations. I'll usually be explicit and use intelligent creature to be clearer, but to me, that is redundant. I would never talk about non-intelligent creatures.
F
- Feeling
- A type of sensory information created by subjective sensors (or from classical conditioning data.) Similar to the psychological concept of affect, our general sense of pleasantness or unpleasantness, and the value function in reinforcement learning.
- In logical examples I use a range of -1.0 to 1.0 to indicate feelings. Positive and negative feelings are now a literal mathematical value.
G
- Game
- A situation that approximates those expected in adulthood, but with no (or much lower) risk of harm.
- Goal
- The ultimate purpose of a creature’s existence.
Webster (1913) Goal 2. The final purpose or aim; the end to which a design tends…
- Gut Reaction
- When a creature capable of making a decision chooses to instead act out of habit.
L
- Learn
- To increase the benefit (or reduce harm) of behaviors.
- Adding or improving behaviors.
M
- Mood
- A persistent effect on a behavior table.
- Memory
- Persistent information.
N
- Non-intelligent Behavior
- Behavior that acts only according to physical laws. Objects that don't possess the ability to choose from more than one possible action.
- Neglect
- An inadequate amount of experience during childhood that can result in eccentric behavior.
O
- Opinion
- A feeling associated with a situation from past experience.
- Operant Conditioning
- A system of intelligent behavior that starts with a variation in behavior, then the probability of behaviors associated with pleasantness are increased and the probability of those associated with unpleasantness are decreased.
R
Reflex
An intelligent behavior acquired by a process external to a creature's first hand experience and is performed automatically without thought or feeling.
S
- Science
- Increasing understanding by adding, simplifying, and increasing the accuracy of beliefs.
- Sensor
- A mechanism used to produce information that represents a particular property of the environment.
- Situation
- A set of conditions at a particular time and place. Current conditions are those here and now, but the same type of information could represent remembered past or imagined future situations.
A list of conditions at a particular time and place. Current conditions are those right here and now, but the same information could represent remembered past or imagined future situations.
- Spoiling
- Arbitrary or excessive feelings of pleasantness leading to eccentric behavior.
- Subjective Sensor
- A sensor that evaluates behavior.
U
- Unpleasantness
- A negative feeling indicating harm. Similar to the psychological concept of negative affect.
- Urgency
- An estimate of the amount of time before a decision is needed.
- The briefness of a time-based decision threshold. Too much urgency can lead to premature conclusions, while too little can lead to indecision.
- Understanding
- The accuracy (how closely predictions are to reality) and efficiency of beliefs.
Behavioral Logic