Simulation of Conditioning Mechanisms in Agents

In order to create adaptive agent systems with abilities matching those of their biological counterparts, a natural approach is to incorporate classical conditioning mechanisms into such systems. However, existing models for classical conditioning are usually based on differential equations. Since the design of agent systems is traditionally based on qualitative conceptual languages, these differential equations are often not directly appropriate to serve as an input for agent system design. To deal with this problem, this paper introduces a formal approach to describe and analyse the dynamics of a conditioning process at a neural level. The approach is based on logical specification and analysis of dynamic properties of conditioning. The approach is illustrated for the case of Aplysia