From the inside looking out: Self extinguishing perceptual cues and the constructed worlds of animats

Abstract

Jakob von Uexküll's theory of the Umwelt is described and it is used to show how perceptual states can be defined. It is described how perceptual cues are selected over evolutionary time and defined by the organism that experiences them. It is then argued that by applying the model of the Umwelt to describe an animat's behaviour, we can model the normally distributed, dynamic activations of the animat as discrete perceptual states. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.