The AHA Model

an autonomous entity (e.g. organism) that is capable of adaptive, goal-directed behavior.

a map of causally and functionally connected structures and mechanisms that compose the whole organism and crucial for its functioning.

an elementary neural force of the central nervous system that activates a broad range of cognitive processes, emotions and behavior.

a cognitive state that results in representation of an environmental or an internal object as a whole so as to create an isomorphism between this object and its subjective representation.

the mechanism through which an agent obtains, processes, stores and uses information from its external and internal environment.

a general interdisciplinary area focusing on cognition in the broad sense, with the mind and brain as a computational machine.

in computer science is the inherent difficulty involved in solving a specific class of computational problems.

awareness of the agent’s own existence and relationships with its environment.

a set of tightly interconnected internal dynamic processes within the cognitive system that integrate a range of causally linked subsystems into a survival circuit, that have significant hedonic value for the individual agent.

a subjective process by which an agent perceives its external and internal environment through awareness. Note that we consider experience a broader concept than feeling, that also includes intellectual experience, belief, etc.

specific state of awareness closely linked with subjective experience, this can include sensory feelings and emotional feelings.

the current state of the organism in terms of the specific survival circuit that is activated, raised arousal, motivation, focused attention etc.

a simple rule, taking into account very few pieces of information, to base estimation, prediction and decision-making upon.

an intelligent computing system that implements learning, cognition and behavioural control. Mind can include a capacity for awareness and is supplemented by numerous automatic processing modules.

model-based cognition is driven by representation of the causal structure of the environment with expectations and predictions of the action outcome whereas model-free, just links reward with the action.

the property or capacity of the system to be decomposed into discrete functional or structural units so that connections are dense within units but sparse across units.

the assumption that fitness consequences are all we need to know to understand the choice of actions, such that the internal mechanisms can be ignored.

the difference between the predicted state of the environment (external and internal) and that actually observed as a consequence of the action.

a view of the organism as a computational machine that forms predictions about the future states of itself and its environment, and makes decisions and selects actions based on these predictions.

An architecture for neural networks and cognitive system based on recurrent (repeated) activation of the same neuronal ensembles and/or functional system.

the capacity to experience subjective feelings.

internal processes and states of the organism that exist from the first-person point of view; their existence is inseparable from and cannot be defined independently of the experiencing organism.

an internal representation or a model of itself and the environment currently held in the brain of the organism, available to decision-making.

an evolutionarily conserved and highly integrated neural pathway that responds to a specific class of innate or learned stimuli and controls a specific set of neurobiological, physiological, and behavioral responses.

a quality of the stimulus or an internal state of the organism involving its intrinsic attractiveness or aversiveness: hedonic quality or tone.