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Through their lifespans, humans emotionally attach to those who provide
physical or emotional security. Attachment phenomena include infants using
their carers as secure-bases from which to explore, and return to when
tired or anxious. A number of existing multi-agent system and robotic
attachment simulations capture secure-base behavioural patterns where
'attached' agents or robots repeatedly recede away from and then return
to their attachment targets. The infant agents in these attachment
simulations can be compared with very early phototropic robots such as Grey
Walter's Tortoises. So instead of phototropism, some existing attachment
models demonstrate a tropic attraction to attachment targets rather than
light sources. However, Attachment Theory involves research on
significantly richer behavioural phenomena than just abstract patterns of
exploratory and secure-base behaviour - for example research on the
longitudinal stability of attachment patterns; grief responses to
separations; and the use of attachment scripts in adult caregiving
contexts. Therefore this talk will assess how three different elaborations
of computational attachment models can help move beyond a simple
'tropic' approach. These are: learning mechanisms; the formation of
richer internal representations and architectures; and the transformative
effects of attachment structured environments for operating and developing
within the social and physical world.