Memory and Action Selection in Human-Machine Interaction

3Layered-structure of Memory and its Development

The human memory system is an integration of three distributed memory systems associated with respective autonomous organic systems; the perceptual system that takes care of sensory input from the environment, the conscious system that performs deliberate decision-making and the unconscious system that carries out action selections in the environment. It works as a memory component in the comprehensive brain model, MHP/RT [KIT 13], which is capable of simulating daily human behavior considering the real-time constraints that should define strong mutual dependencies among the three systems. This chapter reconsiders MHP/RT’s memory system by mapping it on the real interconnections between the cranial nerves and the spinal nerves to obtain a topological representation of the distributed memory system.

3.1. MHP/RT modules and their associated memories

The human memory system is constructed as the result of a continuous cyclic loop of perception and movement as shown by Figure 3.1. This process chart essentially shows that memory is created via working of autonomous nervous systems that operate along the information flow from the sensory nervous system to somatic nervous system via interneurons under the time constraints that should reflect the environmental conditions at the time of each operation. Operations are the results of a sequence of selecting an action followed by its execution. Our MHP/RT describes how it is carried out ...