Abstract
In so-called interactive biorobotics, robotic models of living systems interact with animals in controlled experimental settings. By observing how the focal animal reacts to the stimuli delivered by the robot, one tests hypotheses concerning the determinants of animal behaviour in social contexts. Building on previous methodological reconstructions of interactive biorobotics, this article reflects on the claim, made by several authors in the field, that this strategy may enable one to explain social phenomena in animals. The answer offered here will be negative: interactive biorobotics does not contribute to the explanation of social phenomena. However, it may greatly contribute to the study of animal behaviour by creating social phenomena in the sense discussed by Ian Hacking, i.e. by precisely defining new phenomena to be explained. It will be also suggested that interactive biorobotics can be combined with more classical robot-based approaches to the study of living systems, leading to a so-called simulation-interactive strategy for the mechanistic explanation of social behaviour in animals.
Highlights
Robots have been used as models of living systems since the first decades of the XX century (Cordeschi 2002)
The goal of proximal studies is to find out how the focal system reacts to the robotic model whenever it displays certain features
Polverino and colleagues (2013) studied the interaction between a robotic fish and real-life fish in a water tunnel
Summary
Robots have been used as models of living systems since the first decades of the XX century (Cordeschi 2002). Building on previous methodological reconstructions of the field (Datteri 2020a, 2021), this article offers a methodological reflection on the role that IB experiments play in the study of collective animal behaviour from the point of view of the philosophy of science. The term “understand” recurs in these statements, notwithstanding some differences in the object of the understanding (e.g. processes, dynamics, principles, behaviour) They all express the opinion that IB may advance our understanding of social phenomena in animals. If one endorses the “no understanding without explanation” thesis defended in (Strevens, 2013), IB experiments, per se, do not advance our understanding of social phenomena This by no means undermines the thesis that IB constitutes an interesting approach to the study of social behaviour in animals.
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