TABLE OF CONTENTS Angelo Loula, State University of Campinas, Brazil
Ricardo Gudwin, State University of Campinas, Brazil
Sidarta Ribeiro, Duke University Medical School, USA
Ivan de Ara jo, University of Oxford, UK
Jo o Queiroz, State University of Campinas, Brazil
Here we propose, based on the Peircean semiotics and informed by neuroethological constraints, a methodology to simulate the emergence of symbolic predator-warning communication among artificial creatures in a virtual world of predatory events. In order to build a digital scenario, and infer the minimum organizational constraints for the design of our creatures, we examined the well-studied case of semiosis in East African vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) and its possible neuroanatomical substrates.
Synthetic methodologies have been used to model and simulate cognitive processes from many different perspectives. Computational neuroethology (Cliff, 1995), evolutionary robotics (Kaplan, 2000; Nolfi & Floreano, 2002; Steels & Vogt, 1997), artificial life (Langton, 1995), animat research (Dean, 1998), and synthetic ethology (MacLennan, 2001, 2002) are some of the interdisciplinary areas of research dedicated to the synthetic design of intelligent systems and creatures. These areas depend heavily on a biological foundation from where they take constraints and ideas for the design of adaptive artificial creatures.
Different levels of the organization of semiotic processes can be studied by way of modeling and simulation (Cangelosi & Turner, 2002; Parisi & Cangelosi, 2002; Perfors, 2002). These levels include the simulation of syntactic structures (Batali,...
