Abstract
Using an epigenetic model, in this paper we investigate the importance of sensorimotor experiences and environmental conditions in the emergence of more advanced cognitive abilities in an autonomous robot. We let the robot develop in three environments affording very different (physical and social) sensorimotor experiences: a ``normal'', standard environment, with reasonable opportunities for stimulation, a ``novel'' environment that offers many novel experiences, and a ``sensory deprived'' environment where the robot has very few and over-simplistic chances to interact. We then: (a) assess how these different experiences influence and change the robot's ongoing development and behavior; (b) compare the said development to the different sensorimotor stages that infants go through and (c) finally after each ``baby'' robot has had time to develop in its environment, we recreate and asses its cognitive abilities using different well-known tests used with human infants such as violation of expectation (VOE) paradigm. Although our model was not explicitly designed following Piaget's, or any other sensorimotor developmental theory, we observed, and discuss in the paper, that relevant sensorimotor experiences, or the lack of, result in the robot going through unplanned development ``stages'' bearing some similarities to infant development, and could be interpreted in terms of Piaget's theory.
Highlights
The first 2 years of life represent a period of rapid cognitive development in human infants
The Koala robots were given a choice between the novel objects and the original energy resource, with the assumption that if/once the robots learned that the novel resources provided a greater charge, they would prefer them over the original resources
We have demonstrated the importance of sensorimotor experiences and environmental conditions in the emergence of more advanced cognitive abilities in an autonomous robot
Summary
The first 2 years of life represent a period of rapid cognitive development in human infants. These novel objects were set to work in a similar manner to the energy resource, recharging the energy of the robot when it was close, these novel objects provided a much greater rate of energy replenishment – 30 units of energy per second, 4 times faster than the original energy resource.
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