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Project 2: Are Bayesian and Active Inference Models Suitable for the Formalization of ViolEx?

Prof. Dr. Dominik Endres (Theoretical Cognitive Science)

PhD Students: Hauke Niehaus, Dhanaraaj Raghuveer

Expectations play a critical role in human perception, cognition, and decision-making. There has been a recent surge in modelling such expectations and the resulting behaviour when they are violated. One recent psychological proposal is the ViolEx model. To move the model forward, we identified three areas of concern and addressed two in this study - Lack of formalization and implementation. Specifically, we provide the first implementation of ViolEx using the Active Inference formalism (ActInf) and successfully simulate all expectation violation coping strategies modelled in ViolEx. Furthermore, through this interdisciplinary exchange, we identify a novel connection between AIF and Piaget's psychology, engendering a convergence argument for improvement in the former's structure/schema learning.
However, while ActInf and its accompanying Bayesian Mechanics (BM) are important psychological and cognitive science theories, it needs to be clarified what its metaphysical commitments are. We tease out these commitments while looking from the perspective of the psychology of goals. We find that Active Inference cannot account for the dynamic growth of goals, primarily because of its closed generative model. We trace the reason for this through the fixed `ontological constraint' of BM to the inherent `logic of machines' in mechanistic models, grounding finally in the incompatibility between substance metaphysics, impredicativity, and emergence.

Publications

Raghuveer, D., Endres, D. (2023). Active Inference and Psychology of Expectations: A Study of Formalizing ViolEx. In: , et al. Active Inference. IWAI 2022. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1721. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28719-0_17

Raghuveer, D., Endres, D. (2023). Active Inference and Psychology of Goals: A study in Substance and Process Metaphysics. To appear in: Proceedings of CogSci 2023, 8 pages.

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