Connectionist and bio-inspired approaches to the study of emotional learning and decision making often emphasize, or imply, an executive role for the brain whilst paying only lip service to the role of the non-neural body. In this short paper I will discuss approaches to modelling emotions that have attempted to take into account, in one form or another, the role of the body in emotional learning and decision making. More specifically, I will argue that the ‘how’ of behavioural responding and not just the ‘what’ must be factored into any learning algorithm that purports to be emotional. Furthermore, I will refer to research that has utilized abstract artificial environments designed to explore the relevance of how behaviours are carried out with a view to scaling performance to more complex, including human-based, environments.
Springer Cham