Abstract
This paper investigates a biologically motivated model of peripersonal space through its implementation on a humanoid robot. Guided by the present understanding of the neurophysiology of the fronto-parietal system, we developed a computational model inspired by the receptive fields of polymodal neurons identified, for example, in brain areas F4 and VIP. The experiments on the iCub humanoid robot show that the peripersonal space representation i) can be learned efficiently and in real-time via a simple interaction with the robot, ii) can lead to the generation of behaviors like avoidance and reaching, and iii) can contribute to the understanding the biological principle of motor equivalence. More specifically, with respect to i) the present model contributes to hypothesizing a learning mechanisms for peripersonal space. In relation to point ii) we show how a relatively simple controller can exploit the learned receptive fields to generate either avoidance or reaching of an incoming stimulus and for iii) we show how the robot can select arbitrary body parts as the controlled end-point of an avoidance or reaching movement.
Highlights
The peripersonal space (PPS) is of special relevance for the life of any complex animal
To the best of our knowledge, we presented the first robot that learns a distributed representation of the space around its body by exploiting a whole-body artificial skin and either self or environment physical contact
Each tactile element has been associated to a spatial receptive field extending in the 3D space around the skin surface
Summary
The peripersonal space (PPS) is of special relevance for the life of any complex animal. When objects enter the peripersonal space, they can be reached for, grasped, or be a threat, evoking for example an avoidance response. Peripersonal space deserves special attention and probably justifies the specific neural circuitry devoted to its representation. The brain has to dynamically integrate information coming from several modalities: motoric, visual, auditory or somatosensory. The evidence derived primarily from recordings in the macaque identifies a specific fronto-parietal network of neurons as the circuitry responsible for the PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0163713. The evidence derived primarily from recordings in the macaque identifies a specific fronto-parietal network of neurons as the circuitry responsible for the PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0163713 October 6, 2016
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