 |
|
BabyBot takes first steps
May 03, 2006BabyBot, a robot modelled on the torso of a two year-old child, is helping researchers take the first, tottering steps towards understanding human perception, and could lead to the development of machines that can perceive and interact with their environment.
The researchers used BabyBot to test a model of the human sense of 'presence', a combination of senses like sight, hearing and touch. The work could have enormous applications in robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine perception. The research is being funded under the European Commission's FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) initiative of the IST programme, as part of the ADAPT project.
"Our sense of presence is essentially our consciousness," says Giorgio Metta, Assistant Professor at the Laboratory for Integrated Advanced Robotics at Italy's Genoa University and ADAPT project coordinator.
Imagine a glorious day lying on a beach, drinking a pina colada, or any powerful, pleasurable memory. A series of specific sensory inputs are essential to the memory.
In the human mind all these sensations combine powerfully to create the total experience. It profoundly influences our future expectations, and each time we go to a beach we add to the store of contexts, situations and conditions. It is the combination of all these inputs and their cumulative power that the ADAPT researchers sought to explore.
Engineering consciousness
"We took an engineering approach to the problem, it was really consciousness for engineers," says Metta, "Which means we first developed a model and then we sought to test this model by, in this case, developing a robot to conform to it."
Modelling, or defining, consciousness remains one of the intractable problems of both science and philosophy. "The problem is duality, where does the brain end and the mind begin, the question is whether we need to consider them as two different aspects of reality," says Metta.
Neuroscientists would tend to develop theories that fit the observed phenomena, but engineers take a practical approach. Their objective is to make it work.
Called the synthetic methodology, it is essentially a method of understanding by building. There are three steps: model aspects of a biological system; abstract general principles of intelligent behaviour from the model; apply these principles to the design of intelligent robots. Model, test, refine. And then repeat.
To that end, ADAPT first studied how the perception of self in the environment emerges during the early stages of human development. So developmental psychologists tested 6 to 18 month-old infants. "We could control a lot of the parameters to see how young children perceive and interact with the world around them. What they do when interacting with their mothers or strangers, what they see, the objects they interact with, for example," says Metta.
From this work they developed a 'process' model of consciousness. This assumes that objects in the environment are not real physical objects as such; rather they are part of a process of perception.
The practical upshot is that, while other models describe consciousness as perception, cognition then action, the ADAPT model sees it as action, cognition then perception. And it's how babies act, too.
When a baby sees an object that is not the final perception of it. A young child will then try to reach the object. If the child fails, the object is too far away. This teaches the child perspective.
If the child does reach the object, he or she will try to grasp it, or taste it or shake it. These actions all teach the child about the object and govern its perception of it. It is a cumulative process rather than a single act.
Our expectations also have enormous influence on our perception. For example, if you believe an empty pot is full, you will lift the pot very quickly. Your muscles unconsciously prepare for the expected resistance, and put more force than is required into lifting; everyday proof that our expectations govern our relationship with the environment.
Or at least that's the model. "It's not validated. It's a starting point to understand the problem," says Metta.
From model to BabyBot
The team used BabyBot to test it, providing a minimal set of instructions, just enough for BabyBot to act on the environment. For the senses, the team used sound, vision and touch, and focused on simple objects within the environment.
There were two experiments, one where BabyBot could touch an object and second one where it could grasp the object. This is more difficult than it sounds. If you look at a scene, you unconsciously segment the scene into separate elements.
This is a highly developed skill, but by simply interacting with the environment the BabyBot did its engineering parents proud when it demonstrated that it could learn to successfully separate objects from the background.
Once the visual scene was segmented, the robot could start learning about specific properties of objects useful, for instance, to grasp them. Grasping opens a wider world to the robot and to young infants too.
The work was successful, but it was a very early proof-of-principle for their approach. The sense of presence, or consciousness, is a huge problem and ADAPT did not seek to solve it in one project. They made a very promising start and many of the partners will take part in a new IST project, called ROBOTCUB.
In ROBOTCUB the engineers will refine their robot so that it can see, hear and touch its environment. Eventually it will be able to crawl, too.
"Ultimately, this work will have a huge range of applications, from virtual reality, robotics and AI, to psychology and the development of robots as tools for neuro-scientific research," concludes Metta.
Information Society and Media DG
Imagine a glorious day lying on a beach, drinking a pina colada, or any powerful, pleasurable memory. A series of specific sensory inputs are essential to the memory.
In the human mind all these sensations combine powerfully to create the total experience. It profoundly influences our future expectations, and each time we go to a beach we add to the store of contexts, situations and conditions. It is the combination of all these inputs and their cumulative power that the ADAPT researchers sought to explore.
Engineering consciousness
"We took an engineering approach to the problem, it was really consciousness for engineers," says Metta, "Which means we first developed a model and then we sought to test this model by, in this case, developing a robot to conform to it."
Modelling, or defining, consciousness remains one of the intractable problems of both science and philosophy. "The problem is duality, where does the brain end and the mind begin, the question is whether we need to consider them as two different aspects of reality," says Metta.
Neuroscientists would tend to develop theories that fit the observed phenomena, but engineers take a practical approach. Their objective is to make it work.
Called the synthetic methodology, it is essentially a method of understanding by building. There are three steps: model aspects of a biological system; abstract general principles of intelligent behaviour from the model; apply these principles to the design of intelligent robots. Model, test, refine. And then repeat.
To that end, ADAPT first studied how the perception of self in the environment emerges during the early stages of human development. So developmental psychologists tested 6 to 18 month-old infants. "We could control a lot of the parameters to see how young children perceive and interact with the world around them. What they do when interacting with their mothers or strangers, what they see, the objects they interact with, for example," says Metta.
From this work they developed a 'process' model of consciousness. This assumes that objects in the environment are not real physical objects as such; rather they are part of a process of perception.
The practical upshot is that, while other models describe consciousness as perception, cognition then action, the ADAPT model sees it as action, cognition then perception. And it's how babies act, too.
When a baby sees an object that is not the final perception of it. A young child will then try to reach the object. If the child fails, the object is too far away. This teaches the child perspective.
If the child does reach the object, he or she will try to grasp it, or taste it or shake it. These actions all teach the child about the object and govern its perception of it. It is a cumulative process rather than a single act.
Our expectations also have enormous influence on our perception. For example, if you believe an empty pot is full, you will lift the pot very quickly. Your muscles unconsciously prepare for the expected resistance, and put more force than is required into lifting; everyday proof that our expectations govern our relationship with the environment.
Or at least that's the model. "It's not validated. It's a starting point to understand the problem," says Metta.
From model to BabyBot
The team used BabyBot to test it, providing a minimal set of instructions, just enough for BabyBot to act on the environment. For the senses, the team used sound, vision and touch, and focused on simple objects within the environment.
There were two experiments, one where BabyBot could touch an object and second one where it could grasp the object. This is more difficult than it sounds. If you look at a scene, you unconsciously segment the scene into separate elements.
This is a highly developed skill, but by simply interacting with the environment the BabyBot did its engineering parents proud when it demonstrated that it could learn to successfully separate objects from the background.
Once the visual scene was segmented, the robot could start learning about specific properties of objects useful, for instance, to grasp them. Grasping opens a wider world to the robot and to young infants too.
The work was successful, but it was a very early proof-of-principle for their approach. The sense of presence, or consciousness, is a huge problem and ADAPT did not seek to solve it in one project. They made a very promising start and many of the partners will take part in a new IST project, called ROBOTCUB.
In ROBOTCUB the engineers will refine their robot so that it can see, hear and touch its environment. Eventually it will be able to crawl, too.
"Ultimately, this work will have a huge range of applications, from virtual reality, robotics and AI, to psychology and the development of robots as tools for neuro-scientific research," concludes Metta.
Information Society and Media DG
Human Perception Current Events and Human Perception News RSSLike humans, monkeys fall into the 'uncanny valley'
Princeton University researchers have come up with a new twist on the mysterious visual phenomenon experienced by humans known as the "uncanny valley." The scientists have found that monkeys sense it too.
Psychologists find that head movement is more important than gender in nonverbal communication
It is well known that people use head motion during conversation to convey a range of meanings and emotions, and that women use more active head motion when conversing with each other than men use when they talk with each other.
Magnetic levitation gives computer users sense of touch
Computers, long used as tools to design and manipulate three-dimensional objects, may soon provide people with a way to sense the texture of those objects or feel how they fit together, thanks to a haptic, or touch-based, interface developed at Carnegie Mellon University.
Color sudoku puzzle demonstrates new vision for computing
Researchers at the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science have developed a colour based Sudoku Puzzle that will help Sudoku players solve traditional Sudoku puzzles but also helps demonstrate the potential benefits of a radical new vision for computing.
Researchers Find Eye Movement Can Affect Problem-solving, Cognition
A pair of Beckman Institute researchers has discovered that by directing the eye movements of test subjects they were able to affect the participants' ability to solve a problem, demonstrating that eye movement is not just a function of cognition but can actually affect our cognitive processes.
UI Spatial Cognition Research Explains Explorers' Limited Ability To Navigate
When explorers like Magellan and Columbus sailed from Europe to the New World 500 years ago, they amazingly managed to navigate the open sea without terrestrial landmarks, natural boundaries or the navigational technology we have today.
Brown Scientists Explain Inception of Perception in the Brain
The taste of champagne, the sound of a train, the flash of a pop fly into left field - indeed all of human perception - begins in the brain's center. That's where sensory information passes from the thalamus to the neocortex for processing.
Researchers examine why food tastes bad to chemotherapy recipients
About two million cancer patients currently receiving certain drug therapies and chemotherapy find foods and beverages to have a foul metallic flavor.
NASA Sees Solar Eclipse in a Different Light
NASA is offering the public a front row seat for the total solar eclipse on Wednesday, March 29 thanks to a partnership with the University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco's Exploratorium.
Biology inspires perceptive machines
Teaching a machine to sense its environment is one of the most intractable problems of computer science, but one European project is looking to nature for help in cracking the conundrum.
More Human Perception Current Events and Human Perception News Articles
 |
Human Perception of Objects: Early Visual Processing of Spatial Form Defined by Luminance, Color, Texture, Motion, and Binocular Disparity by David M. Regan (Author) Human Perception of Objects is a detailed and systematic treatment of how we see objects and discriminate their shapes. Chapter 1 explains the concepts that are necessary to understand modern psychophysical vision research, making a sharp distinction between research on human visual system function and research on visual system physiology ("psychophysics is not physiology"), and treating psychophysics as a branch of nonlinear systems analysis. With the aim of emphasizing understanding (as distinct from a facility in mathematical exercises), the nature of the human visual system is placed firmly within an evolutionary context. Chapter 2 is a thorough critical review of what we know about the visual processing that underlies our ability to see objects that are rendered visible by being... |
 |
Beyond Human Perception (Relapse CD EP) Human Remains (Primary Contributor) |
 |
Super Senses Also With: Animal Planet (Producer) |
 |
ABC News Primetime Ethical Dilemmas: What Would You Do? What would you do if you saw bullies ganging up on an innocent kid or a couple fighting in the park -- the boyfriend on the verge of physically harming the woman? "Primetime" conducts a hidden camera tests to see what people do when confronted with ethical dilemmas that force them to act or not. Whether walking right by or getting involved in these scenarios, the reactions people have are fascinating. "Primetime" also takes the experiment further, looking at whether perception influences people's reactions. Will dressing the bullies tougher or changing the race of the fighting couple affect how people respond? John Quinones reports. Then: How will passengers handle a taxi driver who goes on an extensive racist rant filled with hateful ethnic slurs... will they tell him to stop, keep... |
|
Unnatural by Jeremy Tharp | |
|
Handbook of Perception and Human Performance, Vol. 1: Sensory Processes and Perception by Kenneth R. Boff (Editor), Lloyd Kaufman (Editor), James P. Thomas (Editor) Written by well-known specialists, here is the most comprehensive handbook available on human perception and performance. This volume covers theory and methods; basic visual processes; auditory, kinesthetic, cutaneous, and vestibular senses; and space and motion perception. Volume two treats information processing, perceptual organization and cognition, and human performance. Organized to facilitate reference usefulness, these volumes provide substantial cross-referencing and extensive use of illustrations. In addition, a substantial amount of tutorial material is provided, with several hundred pages devoted to the elucidation of the conceptual and methodological underpinnings of the more substantive chapters. Figure legends are extremely detailed to enhance their reference usefulness... | |
 |
Perception, Cognition, And Decision Training:The Quiet Eye In Act (Hardcover Book) by Human Kinectics Athletes must be able to make split-second decisions under the pressures of competition, but often this vital learning is left to chance. With Perception, Cognition, and Decision Training: The Quiet Eye in Action, readers gain access to the research foundations behind an innovative decision-training system that has been used successfully for years in training athletes. Certain to become the definitive guide to decision making in sport, this text presents three innovations solidly based in research. The first is the vision-in-action method of recording what athletes actually see when they perform. The second is the quiet eye phenomenon that has attracted considerable media attention. The third innovation is decision training to identify not only how athletes make performance... |
 |
Emotions in the Human Voice, Volume 3: Culture and Perception by Krzysztof Izdebski (Author) The last volume of Emotions in the Human Voice presents the reader with information on the application of vocal emotions in the daily interaction with technology and whether the vocal emotions are universal or culture specific. This volume presents noteworthy data on the cross-cultural vocal emotions and how the emerging silicon technology struggles to provide unbiased and accurate renditions of instruments, computers, systems and products that will interact properly with vocally transmitted emotions. The author discusses the problems and challenges in creating virtual emotional anthropomorphismic creatures, how automatic recognition of vocal emotions by machines is achieved, and the effects of future technology on our day-to-day "emotional life". |
|
Perception and Action: The Importance and Contributions of Non-Human Animal Research in Psychology [VHS] Starring: American Psychiatric Association | |
 |
Wildfire Risk: Human Perceptions and Management Implications (RFF Press) (RFF Press) by Wade E. Martin (Author), Wade E. Martin; Carol Raish; Brian Kent (Editor) Wildfire Risk follows from an increasing awareness among fire experts that relying on fire behavior models from the physical sciences to design a risk management program is no longer sufficient and that simply increasing public knowledge related to wildfire hazard does not necessarily lead to appropriate risk reduction behaviors. Public land managers, property developers, landowners, and politicians must ask more about the social and psychological factors that motivate people to respond appropriately to risk. Thus far the majority of research and applied work about human responses to wildfire mitigation has been directed at individuals rather than communities. Drawing heavily upon health and risk communication, the contributors to Wildfire Risk highlight the differences... |
| © 2009 BrightSurf.com |