Behaviour Explanation via Causal Analysis of Mental States: A Preliminary Report

Inspired by a novel action-theoretic formalization of actual cause, Khan and Lesp'erance (2021) recently proposed a first account of causal knowledge that supports epistemic effects, models causal knowledge dynamics, and allows sensing actions to be causes of observed effects. To date, no other study has looked specifically at these issues. But their formalization is not sufficiently expressive enough to model explanations via causal analysis of mental states as it ignores a crucial aspect of theory of mind, namely motivations. In this paper, we build on their work to support causal reasoning about conative effects. In our framework, one can reason about causes of motivational states, and we allow motivation-altering actions to be causes of observed effects. We illustrate that this formalization along with a model of goal recognition can be utilized to explain agent behaviour in communicative multiagent contexts.