From Neuro-Psychoanalysis to Cognitive and Affective Automation Systems

Following a bionic tradition, the book describes the design of an intelligent automation system by taking a prominent biological system as inspiration: the human mind, being capable of quickly filtering vast amounts of sensor data and making good decisions in complex situations. Different to most other computational cognitive systems, the developed model is based on neurological findings in combination with psychoanalytic models and concepts - two sciences which have only recently embarked in promising cooperative directions. From the psychoanalytic perspective, out of the many frameworks, the id-ego-superego model of S. Freud and the idea of mental life as a continuous battle of conflicting forces where the discharge of tensions gives rise to pleasure are included as key elements. The resulting architecture is hierarchical, including low-level forms of reasoning as well as high-level forms. Affective mechanisms such as emotions, drives, and desires are combined with more traditional cognitive mechanisms such as planning and anticipation. An important aspect of the architecture is the introduction of an emotionally afflicted episodic memory.

Brigitte Palensky, MSc PhD, studied physics at the Vienna University of Technology, focusing on dynamical systems theory. After that, she pursued studies in AI, cognitive science, and natural and artificial evolutionary systems. Her main research interests are the evolution and development of cognitive capacities, both in animals and humans.