The mot framework is a system for learning behaviors while
organizing them across a two-dimensional, topological map such that
similar behaviors are represented in nearby regions of the map. The
current paper introduces temporal
coherence into the framework, whereby temporally extended
behaviors are more likely to be represented within a small, local
region of the map. In previous work, the regions of the map
represented arbitrary parts of a single global policy. This paper
introduces and examines several different methods for achieving
temporal coherence, each applying updates to the map using both
spatial and temporal neighborhoods, thus encouraging parts of the
policy that commonly occur together in time to reside within a
common region. These methods are analyzed experimentally in a
setting modeled after a human behavior-switching game, in which
players are rewarded for producing a series of short but specific
behavior sequences. The new methods achieve varying degrees—in some
cases high degrees—of temporal coherence. An important byproduct of
these methods is the automatic decomposition of behavior sequences
into cohesive groupings, each represented individually in local
regions.