Epigenetic robotics―modelling cognitive development in robotic systems

摘要

In their introduction to the first International Workshop on Epigenetic Robotics, Zlatev and Balkenius (2001) suggested the term epigenetic robotics to denote a new field of research resulting from the mutual rapprochement of developmental psychology and robotics, with a focus on the prolonged epigenetic developmental process through which increasingly more complex cognitive structures emerge in the system as a result of interactions with the physical and social environment. In principle, both developmental psychology and robotics should benefit from cross-disciplinary exchanges. Indeed, development involves interaction with the environment―be it social interaction (see, e.g. Vygotsky 1978) or sensorimotor interaction (see, e.g. Piaget 1945)―and certainly, the construction of systems that can physically and socially interact with the world and other agents living in it should help formalize what otherwise often remains descriptive evidence, or simple curve fitting. Building robotic models of cognitive development requires the specification and implementation of the supposed underlying mechanisms. Assuming that the plausibility of a proposed model can be demonstrated―by providing possible explanations for the data available and by being accurate in a wide range of developmentally valid constraints―its existence can provide a useful explanatory component and thus contribute to the validation and further development of theoretical foundations.