Abstract
In many applications, for instance in role playing games, it is an advantage when “minds” of virtual characters feature an episodic memory system. This system can boost cognitive capabilities of the characters as well as their ability to respond to player’s questions.
Recently, several special-purpose memory mechanisms for virtual characters have been published. We have been developing a more generic model, which incorporates hierarchically organized memory for events and a component reconstructing plausibly time when an event happened.
One open question that has not been addressed yet in the context of virtual characters is how precisely should an episodic memory store timing information. To answer this question, we have conducted a study to investigate what time categories people use when asking time-cued questions.
We hypothesized that humans prefer using fuzzy categories such as “morning” or “after lunch” rather than exact information and this hypothesis was confirmed.