# Framework for Incorporating Artificial Somatic Markers in the Decision-Making of Autonomous Agents
## 4 Design of Artificial Somatic Markers for Decision-Making of Autonomous Agents
### Designing Algorithms for the Decision-Making of Autonomous Agents
For example, the current version does not consider in its design the availability of stimuli that facilitate communication with other autonomous agents within the contexts of cooperation and competition. External stimuli such as empathy or compassion could modify, for example, the recognition of a decision point in a context of cooperation. Similarly, aspects such as loyalty could require the existence of additional mechanisms for the elaboration of decision options. On the other hand, external stimuli such as rivalry or enmity could also modify the recognition of a decision point. Examples of frameworks for agent collaboration and competition are [65; 66; 67; 68]. The present framework does not have special considerations for mobile autonomous agents, that is, agents that must travel through different environments (or \"containers\"), adapting to specific conditions of each environment in which they must make decisions. For this, the present framework could be extended by incorporating a new type of stimulus (mobility), adding greater complexity and richness at the algorithmic level and within the unified decision-making process. Examples of frameworks for mobile agents are [69; 70; 71]. Moreover, the current proposal considers only two major priority levels (high priority and normal priority), so if a disaggregated level of priorities is required (e.g., different alert levels), an extension of the features of this proposal would be required. The above could be explored using soft computing techniques [72; 73; 74]. In the literature, it is possible to find different architectural proposals for the design and implementation of autonomous agents. However, to the best of our knowledge, it is not possible to find frameworks that allow considering the incorporation of artificial somatic markers in the different phases of decision-making in autonomous agents. The foregoing allows the opening of a new line of research work related to the design and implementation of systems based on the use of autonomous agents in various application fields, where the decision-making process can be guided by the availability and use of artificial somatic markers. The present research work does not seek to analyze the decision-making of an autonomous agent from game theory but, rather, to offer a perspective from artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. In this sense, it is recognized, for example, that decision-making is the consequence of a permanent rational-emotional process, where, depending on the context, the affective and somatic dimension may have a greater weight in the choice of each decision. Aspects such as the intransitivity of the decision or the invariance of the procedure are aspects that are not particularly studied in this research work. However, the incorporation of artificial somatic markers in autonomous agents could precisely make it possible to illustrate how humans decide in certain scenarios and, in this way, increase the available knowledge about the understanding of human decision making. ## 7 Conclusions

A general framework for incorporating artificial somatic markers in the decision-making of autonomous agents has been presented. This framework considers a collection of algorithms for different phases of a decision: recognition of decision point; determination of the courses of action; analysis of decision options; decision selection and performing, and; memory management. These phases have been integrated into a unified decision-making process. Likewise, a general architecture that guides the implementation of artificial somatic markers in autonomous agents has been designed. A conceptual study case on transportation of people under a tourism context is presented. The scope of this work corresponds to showing the design of a framework for incorporating artificial somatic markers within autonomous agents. To the best of our knowledge, it is not possible to find a proposal that presents what has been developed in the current work.