?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.title=SIM_AGENT%3A+A+toolkit+for+exploring+agent+designs&rft.creator=Sloman%2C+Aaron&rft.creator=Poli%2C+Riccardo&rft.subject=Artificial+Intelligence&rft.subject=Robotics&rft.description=SIM_AGENT+is+a+toolkit+that+arose+out+of+a+project+concerned+with+designing+an+architecture+for+an+autonomous+agent+with+human-like+capabilities.+Analysis+of+requirements+showed+a+need+to+combine+a+wide+variety+of+richly+interacting+mechanisms%2C+including+independent+asynchronous+sources+of+motivation+and+the+ability+to+reflect+on+which+motives+to+adopt%2C+when+to+achieve+them%2C+how+to+achieve+them%2C+and+so+on.+These+internal+%60management'+(and+meta-management)+processes+involve+a+certain+amount+of+parallelism%2C+but+resource+limits+imply+the+need+for+explicit+control+of+attention.+Such+control+problems+can+lead+to+emotional+and+other+characteristically+human+affective+states.+In+order+to+explore+these+ideas%2C+we+needed+a+toolkit+to+facilitate+experiments+with+various+architectures+in+various+environments%2C+including+other+agents.+The+paper+outlines+requirements+and+summarises+the+main+design+features+of+a+Pop-11+toolkit+supporting+both+rule-based+and+%60sub-symbolic'+mechanisms.+Some+experiments+including+hybrid+architectures+and+genetic+algorithms+are+summarised.&rft.date=1996&rft.type=Journal+(Paginated)&rft.type=PeerReviewed&rft.format=application%2Fpostscript&rft.identifier=http%3A%2F%2Fcogprints.org%2F471%2F2%2FAaron.Sloman_Riccardo.Poli_sim_agent_toolkit.ps&rft.identifier=++Sloman%2C+Aaron+and+Poli%2C+Riccardo++(1996)+SIM_AGENT%3A+A+toolkit+for+exploring+agent+designs.++%5BJournal+(Paginated)%5D+++++&rft.relation=http%3A%2F%2Fcogprints.org%2F471%2F