Title
Behavioural Plasticity Can Help Evolving Agents in Dynamic Environments but at the Cost of Volatility
Abstract
AbstractNeural networks have been widely used in agent learning architectures; however, learnings for one task might nullify learnings for another. Behavioural plasticity enables humans and animals alike to respond to environmental changes without degrading learned knowledge; this can be achieved by regulating behaviour with neuromodulation—a biological process found in the brain. We demonstrate that by modulating activity-propagating signals, neurally trained agents evolving to solve tasks in dynamic environments that are prone to change can expect a significantly higher fitness than non-modulatory agents and also achieve their goals more often. Further, we show that while behavioural plasticity can help agents to achieve goals in these variable environments, this ability to overcome environmental changes with greater success comes at the cost of highly volatile evolution.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.1145/3487918
ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems
DocType
Volume
Issue
Journal
15
4
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
1556-4665
0
0.34
References 
Authors
0
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Chloe M. Barnes100.34
Anikó Ekart256462.28
Kai Olav Ellefsen311.72
Kyrre Glette434441.17
Peter R. Lewis525330.22
Jim Torresen687696.23