Skill Characterization Based on Betweenness

Özgür Simsek, Andrew G. Barto

Abstract: We present a characterization of a useful class of skills based on a graphical representation of an agent's interaction with its environment. Our characterization uses betweenness, a measure of centrality on graphs. It may be used directly to form a set of skills suitable for a given environment. More importantly, it serves as a useful guide for developing online, incremental skill discovery algorithms that do not rely on knowing or representing the environment graph in its entirety.