Effectors

An agent in Odor World has effectors that it uses to move, speak and eventually perform other actions. Animals accomplish this through muscle movement that allow them to run, swim, glide and, in the case humans, speak. Effectors are coupled with output neurons in neural networks. When these neurons get activated, the agent performs the action associated with the effector.To display an agent's effectors, double click on the agent in Odor World and select the effectors tab. The effector panel lists all of an agent's effectors along with its effector type and label. Labels can be renamed by double clicking on the label column.



Straight

A straight effector moves the agent straight forward in Odor World. As long as the neuron coupled with the effector is active, the agent will continue to try to move directly forward in Odor World. The distance that the agent moves per time step is the product of the activation in the neuron and the base movement amount.

                Base movement amount: Determines the distance that total distance that the agent moves in Odor World.

Turning

Controlled turning in organisms are accomplished by coordination of various muscle groups. The turning effector is much simpler. The direction that the agent faces is determined by a function of turning direction and turning amount.

             Turning direction: Determines the direction of that the agent turns to. A positive value makes the agent left. A negative value makes the agent turn right.

                Turning amount: Determines how much the agent turns toward the direction of turning direction.

Speech

Humans utilize a variety of muscle groups to speak. A simplified model of this is simulated by speech effectors in Odor World. When a speech effector is activated, it activates hearing sensors of the same utterance.


              Utterance: The string or phrase associated with this effector. A hearing effector gets activated when it senses a speech effector of the same utterance.
             Threshold: The amount of activation in a neuron above which the speech effector gets activated.