The Evolution of Affective States and Social Control

We present a research strategy to study the effects of various components in an agent architecture (e.g., feedback circuits that can implement various control states) on the dynamics of species interactions in a simulated environment. In particular, we discuss the consequences of behaviors elicited by affective states (like “hunger” or “fear”) for whole agent societies. Construing affective phenomena as processes implemented in part by the agent, but partly also resulting from the agent-environment interaction (including interactions with other agents), we report simulation results that suggest that certain affective states are very likely to evolve in competitive multi-species environments because they lead to behavior that is bene£cial at the society level. From this we conclude that further studies along the lines we suggest might reveal evolutionary trajectories from simple individual re¤ex-like agents to much more complex multi-agent societies, possibly also hinting at why relatively few species have developed a complex deliberative control system.