A multi-level cognitive architecture for self-referencing, self-awareness and self-interpretation

In this paper, a multilevel cognitive architecture is introduced that can be used to model mental processes in clients of psychotherapeutic sessions. The architecture does not only cover base level mental processes but also mental processes involving self-referencing, self-awareness and self-interpretation. To this end, the cognitive architecture was designed according to four levels, where (part of) the structure of each level is represented by an explicit self-model of it at the next-higher level of the architecture. At that next-higher level, states reify part of the structure of the level below; these states have a referencing relation to it. In this way the overall architecture includes its own overall self-model. The cognitive architecture was evaluated for a case study of a realistic type of therapeutic session from clinical practice.