Metacognition in SNePS

The SNePS knowledge representation, reasoning, and acting system has several features that facilitate metacognition in SNePS-based agents. The most prominent is the fact that propositions are represented in SNePS as terms rather than as sentences, so that propositions can occur as arguments of propositions and other expressions without leaving first-order logic. The SNePS acting subsystem is integrated with the SNePS reasoning subsystem in such a way that: there are acts that affect what an agent believes; there are acts that specify knowledge-contingent acts and lack-of-knowledge acts; there are policies that serve as “daemons”, triggering acts when certain propositions are believed or wondered about. The GLAIR agent architecture supports metacognition by specifying a location for the source of self-awareness, and of a sense of situatedness in the world. Several SNePS-based agents have taken advantage of these facilities to engage in self-awareness and metacognition.