Unibo Team Leader: Prof.ssa Anna Maria Borghi, Dip. di Psicologia
This project is focused on the development or emergence of communication between robots and between robots and humans. In particular, the project will address the question of how critical it is for communicating agents to share the same general view of the world. Agents possessing different sensory and motor systems may have different views of the world and therefore may have difficulties in communicating. We will explore to what extent and which aspects of world models must be shared in order to facilitate communication between between robots and humans.
We wish to increase understanding of the requirements of affordance based world models, shared models and communication provided by such models. Recent neurophysiological data have shown
that in the premotor cortex there are two sets of neurons: one active during the execution of specific object-directed actions and also responding to the visual presentation of the object that recruits the specific action coded motorically by the neuron (canonical neurons); the other that respond to the visual presentation of actions done by others and to their corresponding verbal labels in the same way as they respond when the action is done by the organism (mirror neurons). This neurophysiological evidence is the platform on which it is possible to construct robots that are able to communicate and co-operate with people, based on understanding of objects, actions, and processes in their environment. The focus of this project is the construction of robots that are able to process simple commands (words referred to actions acting upon objects and specifying objects) and to respond appropriately by interacting with different kinds of objects and entities in their environment. To pursue this goal an interdisciplinary team has been assembled, including psychologists, neuroscientists, computer scientists and robotics engineers.
Coordinator
ALMA MATER STUDIORUM-UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA
- Dip. di Psicologia
- Resp. scientifico: Prof.ssa Anna Maria Borghi
Other participants
UNIVERSITA' DEGLI STUDI DI PARMA (Italy)
HOGSKOLAN I SKOVDE (Sweden)
UNIVERSITAET ZU LUEBECK (Germany)
MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY (Turkey)
ABERYSTWYTH UNIVERSITY (UK)
Start date 01/03/2008
End date 28/02/2011
Duration 36 months
Project cost 3697156 Euro
Project Funding 2800000 Euro
Subprogramme Area Cognitive Systems, Interaction, Robotics
Contract type Small or medium-scale focused research project