It's called a "computational temperature" and Copycat uses it - in a
controlled fashion - to good effect. See Hofstadter's "Fluid Concepts
and Creative Analogies". I feel that a "computational temperature" is
almost exactly the analogue of a human emotion... in a non-goal-oriented
architecture, at that.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/singularity.html
http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/algernon.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.