AI サービスが一時的に利用できないため、復旧後に翻訳を補完します。
[Submitted on 16 Sep 2026] Title:The syntax and semantics of goals View a PDF of the paper titled The syntax and semantics of goals, by David M. Abel and Mark K. Ho View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:In both cognitive science and computer science, goals are conceptualized as cognitive states that flexibly combine with world knowledge to organize and specify purposeful behavior. In this way, goals are compositional representations whose content relates to rational behavior. We here draw attention to goals as representations and their content because it highlights a parallel with other areas in cognitive science - in particular, the syntax-semantics interface in linguistics and logic - while also foregrounding foundational questions about the expressivity, design, and efficiency of different goal representations. For example, goals are typically taken as fixed and imposing constraints on desirable behaviors, but we can also identify constraints on goal representations themselves, such as whether a particular goal language is sufficiently expressive to capture behaviors of interest, or whether different goal representations capture the same behavior. Here, we synthesize work that aims to characterize the properties of different goal representations and suggest these are points of a broader design space. We close by discussing how distinguishing the form and meaning of goals can elucidate the implicit assumptions we make about goals, inform the study of interactions between higher-level cognition and motivation, and isolate axes of variation for different conceptions of goals. Comments: To appear in Topics in Cognitive Science, special issue on Goal-Centric Perspectives in Cognitive Science Subjects: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) Cite as: arXiv:2609.19448 [cs.AI] (or arXiv:2609.19448v1 [cs.AI] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.19448 arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Mark Ho [view email] [v1] Wed, 16 Sep 2026 21:32:03 UTC (742 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled The syntax and semantics of goals, by David M. Abel and Mark K. Ho View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Current browse context: cs.AI new | recent | 2026-09 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Loading... Data provided by: Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)