[C2 utility] RewardTracker 1.0
Denise L. Voskuil
>I've written a utility that some may find useful for displaying what
>is currently being rewarded or punished in the norn brain. Rather than
>monitoring the levels of the norn chemicals for reward, etc it
>monitors the actual level of the brain chemicals (chem0-chem5) in the
>Concept and Decision lobes. These are the chemicals that actually
>trigger the lobe learning and atrophy mechanisms.
Chris, thank you! That sounds like SUCH a helpful program! (runs off
to download...)
- Denise
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Chris Double
is currently being rewarded or punished in the norn brain. Rather than
monitoring the levels of the norn chemicals for reward, etc it
monitors the actual level of the brain chemicals (chem0-chem5) in the
Concept and Decision lobes. These are the chemicals that actually
trigger the lobe learning and atrophy mechanisms.
It's available at my site http://www.cnd.co.nz/creatures or on a.b.g.c
shortly.
Readme is below:
RewardTracker 1.0
=================
This program examines the brain of the currently selected norn and
displays what concepts and perceptions are currently being reinforced
due to the presence of punishment or reward chemicals.
It tracks the actual level of the brain chemicals in the concept and
decision lobes rather than tracking the levels of the norn chemicals.
In this way it gives a more accurate picture of what is actually
happening inside the norn brain. It allows you to watch a norn perform
an action and see if that action got rewarded or punished. It is also
useful for seeing if too much reward or punishment chemical exists,
resulting in inappropriate actions being rewarded.
It's a first cut at this type of monitoring and there is a lot of
information that can be displayed. Currently I only display what the
norn is looking at, what it has decided to do and whether that action
results in reinforcement. I also display a quick note when the concept
lobe and decision lobe becomes full and starts to atrophy. This can
probe useful in monitoring the effects of adjusting number of dendrites
and/or lobe sizes.
A detailed log of all perceptions that are reinforced when forming the
concepts is also displayed. By looking at this you can get a fair idea
of what the norn is actually learning. All this information appears
very rapidly due to the fast pace of data going through the creatures
brain so the log list can be useful when pausing the program and analysing
the information.
I expect to improve on the presentation and type of information presented
in a future version.
Those who may find this program most useful are likely to be people who
are modifying or creating norn brain structures, or adjusting the various
emitters, receptors and reactions involving learning. It can also be
quite fascinating just to sit and watch what is happening inside your
favourite norns mind.
Usage Notes
===========
This is a Creatures 2 only program. It will not work with Creatures 1.
1. Extract all the files into a directory of your choice.
2. Make sure Creatures 2 is running and a norn is selected.
3. Run RewardTracker.exe to display the browser.
The right hand pane shows what the attention lobe is currently looking
at, what decision is currently being made and whether this decision is
being rewarded (Learning text box). This text box will show:
'decision is good for me' if it is processing reinforcing the decision
as being a good decision to do (strengthening type 0 dendrites in the
decision lobe).
'decision is bad for me' if it is processing reinforcing the decision
as being a bad decision to do (strengthening type 1 dendrites in the
decision lobe).
Note that this box uses the actual brain chemicals (chem0->chem3) not
the reward, punishment or reinforcement norn chemicals for working out
if things were reinforced.
It's possible I may be displaying these messages if no reinforcement
is occuring - this is because I can't get the value of
'susceptibility' and the svrule for strengthening dendrites uses it. I
do try and work out the susceptibility value by calculating the
susceptibility svrule myself so I don't think it is - but you should
take the results as being approximate just in case.
The 'comments' text box will display messages if the concept lobe
dendrites, or the decision lobe dendrites are atrophying due to being
no loose dendrites available.
The log view on the left will display all this stuff in order down the
list, as well as showing the levels of the perception cells that
contributed to the decision reinforcement/punishment being made. So
you might see that perception cells 'eat', 'food' and 'hunger' were
high when the norn chose to 'eat' while looking at 'food' which causes
reinforcement of a good decision.
Note that only the concept and decision lobes are monitored and it is
assumed that they are relatively standard. It works on all norn
brain variants I know about (including Canny, Nova Subterra and Adroit)
but creatures with very radical brain structures (like no concept lobe)
may not show correct information.
This program has been virus checked using the latest version of F-PROT
that I have been able to get. I suggest that you virus scan it anyway
using the scanners of your choice. Better to be safe than sorry!
Troubleshooting
===============
You may need some additional files to run this program.
These files are probably already installed on your PC but
if not they can be downloaded from:
http://www.cnd.co.nz/creatures/programs/mfc6.zip
If, when running RewardTracker, you get error messages
concerning missing DLL's, missing dynalinks, or something
similar you will need to unzip the files in mfc6.zip into
the same directory as RewardTracker or place them in your
windows system directory.
Legal Stuff
===========
RewardTracker is Copyright (c) 1999, Chris Double.
All Rights Reserved.
You are welcome to place this program on your website for others
to download as long as you credit me as being the auther and provide
a link back to my site.
History
=======
V1.0 = Initial Release.
And Finally...
==============
Any questions, comments or suggestions can be addressed to the Author:
Chris Double
http://www.cnd.co.nz/creatures
ch...@cnd.co.nz
ICQ 8600051
--
21 March 1999
Chris Double
Ali (Alastair Maggs)
Thanks for yet another useful program :). Certainly going to come in handy.
Ali
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Chris Double <ch...@cnd.co.nz> wrote in message
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