Towards a computational theory of human daydreaming

Abstract

This paper examines the phenomenon of daydreaming: spontaneously recalling or imagining personal or vicarious experiences in the past or future. The following important roles of daydreaming in human cognition are postulated: plan preparation and rehearsal, learning from failures and successes, support for processes of creativity, emotion regulation, and motivation. A computational theory of daydreaming and its implementation as the program DAYDREAMER are presented. DAYDREAMER consists of 1) a scenario generator based on relaxed planning, 2) a dynamic episodic memory of experiences used by the scenario generator, 3) a collection of personal goals and control goals which guide the scenario generator, 4) an emotion component in which daydreams initiate, and are initiated by, emotional states arising from goal outcomes, and 5) domain knowledge of interpersonal relations and common everyday occurrences. The role of emotions and control goals in daydreaming is discussed. Four control goals commonly used in guiding daydreaming are presented: rationalization, failure/success reversal, revenge, and preparation. The role of episodic memory in daydreaming is considered, including how daydreamed information is incorporated into memory and later used. An initial version of DAYDREAMER which produces several daydreams (in English) is currently running.