Using the Instance-Based Learning Paradigm to Model Energy-Relevant Occupant Behaviors in Buildings

Human interactive behavior is accountable for most of the variance between the observed and predicted energy consumption of buildings, and is accordingly acknowledged as a major field of research into limiting building-related energy consumption. A thorough understanding of occupant behavior is critical to facilitate a more reliable prediction of energy consumption and identifying means by which pro-environmental behaviors can be promoted. Insights and models from psychology and sociology appear to be best suited to improving such understanding, and this article contributes to this end by developing and testing a cognitive model that serves as the core of a numerical human-building interaction model. The proposed implementation builds on instance-based learning, a well-established cognitive modeling paradigm, is integrated into a thermodynamic building model, and complemented by perception models for the approximation of the thermal and olfactory perception of the environment. The model successfully learns to interact plausibly with a set of elements of a model room—a heating system, a window, and the actor’s clothing—in order to establish predefined room conditions. Accumulation of context-specific instances in the declarative memory, which are retrieved and blended in a decision situation, provide the model with the flexibility to adapt its actions to very different climatic contexts, represented by the locations Stuttgart, Madrid, Stockholm, and Melbourne. Moreover, the model manages to find appropriate compromises if need satisfaction requires contradictory actions, such as in situations where satisfaction of the olfactory need requires opening the window and satisfaction of the thermal need requires keeping it closed. Despite its obvious complexity, the model must be considered to be a basic model, which restricts the immediate comparability of its results to human behavior data. However, the successfully applied plausibility checks clearly indicate the value of the cognitive approach to modeling human-building interaction.