TITLE: Informational constraints-driven organization in goal-directed behavior
SPEAKER: Sander van Dijk (Department of Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire)

ABSTRACT:

I will discuss goal-directed behavior in the light of informationally constrained cognition. Specifically, we will consider lower bounds of the information about a goal needed in order to generate behavior that achieves such a goal at a certain level of optimality. Assuming a working memory that operates on this minimally relevant goal-information, we can study the necessary dynamics of in and out-flow of information for such a working memory. Moreover, I will discuss the explicit constraints on goal-information pathways as information bottlenecks.

Finally I will show that intrinsic and behavioral organizations, such as ritualized behavior, salient sub-goals, and natural abstractions, appear as a natural result of the studied informational constraints, and will argue that the taken approach when generalized can constitute an important step towards guiding self-organization.