Disentangled Representations for Causal Cognition

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Torresan, Filippo, Baltieri, Manuel
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Torresan, Filippo
Baltieri, Manuel
author_facet Torresan, Filippo
Baltieri, Manuel
contents Complex adaptive agents consistently achieve their goals by solving problems that seem to require an understanding of causal information, information pertaining to the causal relationships that exist among elements of combined agent-environment systems. Causal cognition studies and describes the main characteristics of causal learning and reasoning in human and non-human animals, offering a conceptual framework to discuss cognitive performances based on the level of apparent causal understanding of a task. Despite the use of formal intervention-based models of causality, including causal Bayesian networks, psychological and behavioural research on causal cognition does not yet offer a computational account that operationalises how agents acquire a causal understanding of the world. Machine and reinforcement learning research on causality, especially involving disentanglement as a candidate process to build causal representations, represent on the one hand a concrete attempt at designing causal artificial agents that can shed light on the inner workings of natural causal cognition. In this work, we connect these two areas of research to build a unifying framework for causal cognition that will offer a computational perspective on studies of animal cognition, and provide insights in the development of new algorithms for causal reinforcement learning in AI.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_00744
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Disentangled Representations for Causal Cognition
Torresan, Filippo
Baltieri, Manuel
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Neurons and Cognition
Complex adaptive agents consistently achieve their goals by solving problems that seem to require an understanding of causal information, information pertaining to the causal relationships that exist among elements of combined agent-environment systems. Causal cognition studies and describes the main characteristics of causal learning and reasoning in human and non-human animals, offering a conceptual framework to discuss cognitive performances based on the level of apparent causal understanding of a task. Despite the use of formal intervention-based models of causality, including causal Bayesian networks, psychological and behavioural research on causal cognition does not yet offer a computational account that operationalises how agents acquire a causal understanding of the world. Machine and reinforcement learning research on causality, especially involving disentanglement as a candidate process to build causal representations, represent on the one hand a concrete attempt at designing causal artificial agents that can shed light on the inner workings of natural causal cognition. In this work, we connect these two areas of research to build a unifying framework for causal cognition that will offer a computational perspective on studies of animal cognition, and provide insights in the development of new algorithms for causal reinforcement learning in AI.
title Disentangled Representations for Causal Cognition
topic Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Neurons and Cognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.00744