CAAF: A cognitive affective agent programming framework

Abstract

Cognitive agent programming frameworks facilitate the development of intelligent virtual agents. By adding a computational model of emotion to such a framework, one can program agents capable of using and reasoning over emotions. Computational models of emotion are generally based on cognitive appraisal theory; however, these theories introduce a large set of appraisal processes, which are not specified in enough detail for unambiguous implementation in cognitive agent programming frameworks. We present CAAF (Cognitive Affective Agent programming Framework), a framework based on the belief-desire theory of emotions (BDTE), that enables the computation of emotions for cognitive agents (i.e., making them cognitive affective agents). In this paper we bridge the remaining gap between BDTE and cognitive agent programming frameworks. We conclude that CAAF models consistent, domain independent emotions for cognitive agent programming.