A variational approach to scripts

This paper proposes a formal reconstruction of the script construct by leveraging the activeinference framework, a behavioural modelling framework that casts action, perception,emotions, and attention as processes of (Bayesian or variational) inference. We propose afirst principles account of the script construct that integrates its different uses in thebehavioural and social sciences. We begin by reviewing the recent literature that uses thescript construct. We then examine the main mathematical and computational features ofactive inference. Finally, we leverage the resources of active inference to offer a formalmodel of scripts. Our integrative model accounts for the dual nature of scripts (as internal,psychological schema used by agents to make sense of event types and as constitutivebehavioural categories that make up the social order) and also for the stronger and weakerconceptions of the construct (which do and do not relate to explicit action sequences,respectively).