Representing Episodes: Space-Time Experiences for Cognitive Architectures
This repo contains the code for running the experiments presented in the article “Representing Episodes: Space-Time Experiences for Cognitive Architectures”, published at “2025 Annual International Conference on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures”.
This project was developed as part of the Cognitive Architectures research line from the Hub for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Architectures (H.IAAC) of the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). See more projects from the group here.
Abstract
The choice of knowledge representation varies among different cognitive architectures. The agent’s experience of Existence is defined by what the knowledge representation can and cannot represent from its observation. In this work, we define a representation of episodes that enable cognitive architectures to accumulate experiences. We describe how Existence may be fragmented in space and time to achieve a core knowledge representation format. This is used to construct Episode Ideas as a form of encoding the agent’s experience of Existence. We demonstrate through experiments the use and versatility of the representation, as well as how semantic knowledge defined by our knowledge representation may affect how the agent experiences the environment.
Repository Structure
-\src\main\java\episode\idea: Source code for project execution
-\docker.sh: Execution script for docker simulation container
-\gradlew: Java build tool
-\visualize_episodes.py: Helper script for plot generation
Requirements
1️⃣ Java
Java JDK 8 or later is required for execution. For Debian, Ubuntu, etc. installation can be done by apt:
sudo apt install openjdk-8-jdk
2️⃣ Docker
To run the simulator, Docker Engine must be installed on your system. If you haven’t yet installed the Docker Engine, follow the installation instructions below:
Linux
To run the container, you need to install the Docker Engine. Follow the steps on the official Docker website.
⚠️ Make sure you follow the instructions for installing Docker Engine by apt. Docker Desktop for Linux will not allow you to use the graphical interfaces in the examples.
Windows
Download the installer and follow the installation steps on the [Docker] website (https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/windows-install/).
⚠️ Make sure that WSL 2 is installed according to the instructions in the System Requirements.
For use on Windows, you will also need to install VcXsrv
MacOS
Download the installer for your hardware and follow the installation steps on the [Docker] website(https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/mac-install/)
For use on Mac you will also need to install XQuatz
Usage
Linux
Once you have the Docker Engine installed, the Docker container for CoppeliaSim can be executed with the script provided in this repository:
./docker.sh
The docker.sh script will start the container and initialize CoppeliaSim with XServer. A window should open with a blank CoppeliaSim simulation.
In a separated terminal window, execute the CST agent by running:
./gradlew run
Citation
@software{my_citation,
author = {G. Silva, Bruno and Camargo, Eduardo and R. Gudwin, Ricardo},
title = {Representing Episodes: Space-Time Experiences for Cognitive Architectures},
url = {https://github.com/H-IAAC/cst-episode-idea}
}
@inproceedings{silva_b_episodes,
author="Silva, Bruno G. and Camargo, Eduardo and da Silva Sim{\~o}es, Alexandre
and Colombini, Esther Luna and Costa, Paula Dornhofer Paro and Gudwin, Ricardo Ribeiro",
title="Representing Episodes: Space-Time Experiences for Cognitive Architectures",
booktitle="Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures 2025",
year="2025",
publisher="Springer Nature Switzerland",
}
Acknowledgements
Project supported by the brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations, with resources from Law No. 8,248, of October 23, 1991.