Dwarf Fortress !!SCIENCE!! Experiments with memories, stress and happiness: an application of the blank slate hypothesis: update 2

!!SCIENCE!! Experiments with memories, stress and happiness: an application of the blank slate hypothesis: update 2
“Why are you eating my baby?” asks dwarf who voted for the baby-eating mayor
-What do you think?-
After a long hiatus decided to try and break through an aquifer...
So... I won this fight. I didn't deserve to, but since I made all my dwarves wear leather armor and (accidentally) only carry shields, I guess they were inspired to make the best of it.
When You’re Just Trying To Build A Wall, And A Dwarf Decides To Just Get Himself Stuck Right In The Cross-Section.

!!SCIENCE!! Experiments with memories, stress and happiness: an application of the blank slate hypothesis: update 2

Posted: 30 Sep 2020 07:20 AM PDT

Reminder of the theory of memories and blank slate hypothesis

Dwarfs have thoughts based on their experiences, those thoughts provoke emotions of varying degrees of strength, creating memories. They have 8 short term memory slots. When a new thought is experienced, a check is made to see if there is an empty memory slot, if there is an empty slot then the thought fills that memory slot. If there is no empty memory slot, a check is made to see if there is an existing memory of that type. If there is no existing memory of that type, the weakest memory (the one with the weakest emotion) will be discarded and replaced with the new thought, regardless of whether the new thought is stronger or weaker than the one that is replacing it. If there is an existing memory of that type, the strongest memory of the two, the new thought and the existing memory, will be kept and the other discarded.

If a thought remains in a short term memory slot for a year, it will attempt to be promoted to long term memory. There are 8 long term memory slots, and the same procedure applies, a check is made to see if there is an empty slot, and if not, if there is an existing memory that is weaker and can be overwritten.

Long term memories are frequently revisited by the dwarf (remembered/dwelled upon/mulled over), and there is a 30% chance that when the long term memory is revisited, it may be moved to the core memory. A move to core memory permanently changes the dwarf's personality, there is no limit to the number of core memory slots.

The blank slate hypothesis considers that when new migrants arrive, they have 8 empty short term and 8 empty long term slots, so those slots can be filled with multiple memories of the same type. Therefore, the first 8 experiences of a new migrant's life in a fortress will greatly affect their stress levels going forward. The full explanation is here: Update 1

Experimental fortress 1: significant early indications

Transposing the data is taking some time, but I'm spotting some patterns already which are worth sharing.

I ran Fortress 1 for 7 years, and attempted to ensure that all new migrants had at least 8 happy thought provoking experiences, and attempted to ensure that they would not see corpses, rain, miasma or experience trauma. The first two years of migrant waves had to build the fortress, so were exposed to rain and corpses. There were a couple of 'mishaps' and a small number of old age deaths in high traffic areas, which ensured that pretty much every dwarf saw a corpse at some point. Conflict was successfully avoided through the use of corpse destroying traps. After 7 years there are 135 adult citizens, not including children and visitors.

Current stress levels

Only 2 dwarfs became unhappy during the period, they were sent on "an adventure" so as not to upset the remaining population. Both dwarfs were from migrant waves that arrived in the first two years. 12 dwarfs are ecstatic, 12 dwarfs are quite content, the remaining dwarfs are fine, with only 3 of the 'fine' dwarfs having small stress indicators (max +358), 29 dwarfs are completely neutral at 0 stress or happiness, 52 of the 'fine' dwarfs have small (-3) to large (-9200) happiness indicators.

Short term memories

A large majority of dwarfs are reporting positive short term thoughts about: the nice dining room, their nice bedroom, acquiring an item, putting on nice clothes, satisfied at work, praying, seeing fine furniture/constructions, and seeing a performance. About half of dwarfs are having positive thoughts about reading and/or learning from books. A large majority of dwarfs are having negative thoughts about praying, being away from family, being away from friends, a lack of decent meals and getting into an argument. About half of dwarfs are having negative thoughts about being unable to help somebody, not being able to craft, experiencing trauma and being sad at being separated from a loved one.

Long term memories

There are some clear patterns. All dwarfs are mulling over their nice bedroom and nice dining room. All dwarfs who have been in the fortress for more than 2 years have a happy memory about sparring and an additional happy memory about learning one military skill (the skill seems random). Almost all dwarfs are remembering being satisfied at work. About half of dwarfs have happy memories about praying, and half are happy remembering improving observation. There are a range of less frequent happy long term memories.

No dwarf has more than two negative long term memories, and they are spread thinly across arguments, vermin, praying, trauma, corpses and miasma.

Core memories

Random personality changes have occurred due to: seeing corpses, experiencing trauma, being uncovered, becoming a parent, experiencing rain and miasma.

Interim conclusions

Eating in a grand dining room is the easiest experience to transfer to long term memory. Their grand dining room is a large room dug into soil, no smoothing or engraving, there are only 12 tables and chairs, none of which are particularly good quality. However, the dining room is immediately underneath the food stockpile, and all food is stored in that single food stockpile, meaning that all dwarfs eat in the dining room, not in the library or elsewhere.

Having a bedroom like a personal palace is consistently transferring into all dwarfs' long term memories. The bedrooms are 3x3 and engraved. It took time to get to this point, so thoughts on bedrooms must be overwriting weaker long term memories that would have taken up one of the 8 slots previously.

Military training is very impactful. I set up military training for all dwarfs between years 2 and 5. They trained for one month each winter, without weapons or armour, and every dwarf who arrived before winter year 5 has two long term happy memories about training, one for sparring, one for improving a fighting skill. The dwarfs who also reported happy memories about improving observation skills may have developed this skill during military training, although that may be due to guildhall demonstrations.

Limiting hauling is impactful. Everybody got to do meaningful work, and hauling was only undertaken were absolutely necessary, such as to and from the trade depot.

Some consistent short term memories didn't translate to long term memories. Nearly all dwarfs had strong happy thoughts about exceptional clothing, but this didn't transfer to long term, likewise acquiring an item, seeing fine furniture and watching a performance. This was not consistent with the theory that the weakest memories are overwritten according to emotion strength given by this table, otherwise being satisfied at work would have been overwritten. Also most negative short term memories didn't translate to long term memory, regardless of strength of emotion.

It does not seem to be true that all memories that are revisited have a 30% chance of being converted to a core memory, only a small number of memory types were converted, namely seeing corpses, rain, trauma, miasma, becoming a parent and being uncovered. These are mostly negative thoughts.

The effect of having the negative long term memories being converted to core memories, but the positive long term memories not being converted is significant. Long term memories are more impactful on stress, as the dwarfs are constantly mulling over their long term memories, and rarely mulling over core memories. As a result, if dwarfs are shielded from reoccurring experiences of seeing corpses, rain and miasma, it seems that their long term memories get 'clogged up' with happy thoughts that are not transferred out, while the unhappy thoughts get cleared out over time.

It would seem that of the 8 slots in short term, 7 slots get filled with memories that remain until promoted, while the weakest slot cycles, until a new slot is made free by a memory being promoted to long term. But it also appears that there is another unknown factor at play, other than the strength of the emotion, that determines which memories remain. I've looked for a pattern related to dwarfs' personalities and preferences, but haven't spotted anything yet.

Likewise with the conversion of long term memories to core memory, it seems to be only certain types of memories that can get converted, not all.

Further research

I shall continue to transpose the data and update as more information becomes available. I'll post the full set of data to the Bay12 forums once complete. In the meantime I'm continuing this experiment by repeating the same approach with Experimental Fortress 2. Fortress 2 takes the same approach of molly-coddling dwarfs that arrive after the first two years, with corpses, rain and miasma being avoided. This will help to confirm the validity of the results from Fortress 1. I intend to take a different approach with Fortress 3 to test the anecdotal reports that watching sentient creatures die makes dwarfs immune to the effects of seeing corpses.

I'm very interested in any reports of changes to personality that occur due to other factors that I haven't seen yet. If you have a dwarf who has experienced a personality change due to some other experience, please let me know :).

submitted by /u/SalfordSal
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“Why are you eating my baby?” asks dwarf who voted for the baby-eating mayor

Posted: 29 Sep 2020 06:57 PM PDT

submitted by /u/resnaturae
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-What do you think?-

Posted: 30 Sep 2020 07:38 AM PDT

I'm close to uploading my modded game to Bay12 and I would like your opinion about anuses. I had coded the body part into my game some time ago and I want to know how offensive or vulgar it seems.

View Poll

submitted by /u/MagentaFox69
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After a long hiatus decided to try and break through an aquifer...

Posted: 30 Sep 2020 10:56 AM PDT

Haven't built the setup yet but, is it possible to build pipe under the input of the screw pump down to the water? Will this setup work or does the input of the pump have to be adjacent and one level above the water?

submitted by /u/reganomics
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So... I won this fight. I didn't deserve to, but since I made all my dwarves wear leather armor and (accidentally) only carry shields, I guess they were inspired to make the best of it.

Posted: 29 Sep 2020 06:32 PM PDT