creators_name: Lungarella, Max
creators_name: Berthouze, Luc
editors_name: Prince, Christopher G.
editors_name: Demiris, Yiannis
editors_name: Marom, Yuval
editors_name: Kozima, Hideki
editors_name: Balkenius, Christian
type: confpaper
datestamp: 2003-10-04
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:55:03
metadata_visibility: show
title: Adaptivity through Physical Immaturity
ispublished: pub
subjects: comp-sci-mach-learn
subjects: comp-sci-neural-nets
subjects: comp-sci-art-intel
subjects: comp-sci-robot
full_text_status: public
keywords: developmental robotics, embodiment, adaptive behavior, entrainment, incremental learning, sensory morphology
abstract: Given a neural control structure, what would be the impact of body growth on control performance? This question, which addresses the issue of the interaction between innate structure, ongoing developing structure and experience, is very relevant to the field of epigenetic robotics. Much of the early social interaction is done as the body develops and the interplay cannot be ignored. We hypothesize that starting with fewer degrees of freedom enables a more efficient exploration of the sensorimotor space, that results in multiple directions of stability. While not necessarily corresponding to optimal task performance, they will guide the coordination of additional degrees of freedom. These additional degrees of freedom then allow for optimal task performance as well as for more tolerance and adaptation to environmental interaction. We propose a simple case-study to validate our hypothesis and describe experiments with a small humanoid robot.
date: 2002
date_type: published
volume: 94
publisher: Lund University Cognitive Studies
pagerange: 79-86
refereed: TRUE
citation:   Lungarella, Max and Berthouze, Luc  (2002) Adaptivity through Physical Immaturity.  [Conference Paper]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/2516/1/Lungarella.pdf