Modular Object-Oriented Games: A Task Framework for Reinforcement Learning, Psychology, and Neuroscience

TL;DR

This paper introduces Modular Object-Oriented Games, a flexible Python framework designed to facilitate interdisciplinary research in AI, psychology, and neuroscience by simplifying game implementation and customization.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, lightweight, and customizable Python framework that bridges multiple disciplines for game-based research in AI, psychology, and neurophysiology.

Findings

Framework is easy to customize and extend.

Supports interdisciplinary research efforts.

Reduces development time for game-based experiments.

Abstract

In recent years, trends towards studying simulated games have gained momentum in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience. The intersections of these fields have also grown recently, as researchers increasing study such games using both artificial agents and human or animal subjects. However, implementing games can be a time-consuming endeavor and may require a researcher to grapple with complex codebases that are not easily customized. Furthermore, interdisciplinary researchers studying some combination of artificial intelligence, human psychology, and animal neurophysiology face additional challenges, because existing platforms are designed for only one of these domains. Here we introduce Modular Object-Oriented Games, a Python task framework that is lightweight, flexible, customizable, and designed for use by machine learning, psychology, and neurophysiology researchers.