Modelling Prior and Retrospective Awareness of Actions

Agents often may prepare for and perform actions without being conscious of these processes. However, in other cases, at some point in time the agent can develop some awareness state relating to the action. This can be an awareness state prior to the execution of the action. An awareness state can also develop in retrospect, after the action was performed. In this paper a neurologically inspired agent model is introduced that is able to make such distinctions. Scenarios are covered in which actions are prepared without being conscious at any point in time. Also scenarios are covered in which the agent develops proir awareness or retrospective awareness, or both. When prior awareness is developed it may be the case that this awareness has a decisive effect on actually executing the action, but it may equally well be the case that the awareness state has no effect on whether the action is performed. All these variations have been illustrated by a wide variety of simulation experiments.