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Published on: May 5, 2015
Learning from humans to build social cognition among robots
Nicolas Coucke1,2, Mary Katherine Heinrich1, Axel Cleeremans2
1IRIDIA, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
Future robots need advanced social cognition, combining inference, learning, influence, and knowledge transfer. Studying human avatars in virtual environments offers insights for developing these complex robot coordination abilities.
Area of Science:
- Robotics
- Artificial Intelligence
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Current robot coordination relies on simple social interactions, limiting complex group behaviors.
- Advancing robot capabilities requires exploring more elaborate coordination mechanisms like social cognition.
- Social cognition in robots is crucial for progressing towards real-world deployments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To define social cognition in robots as a combination of social inference, learning, influence, and knowledge transfer.
- To propose methods for establishing social cognition in robots by modeling human behaviors.
- To explore the use of virtual environments for studying human social cognition relevant to robotics.
Main Methods:
- Reviewing key human social processes that can inform robot capabilities.
- Proposing the study of human-controlled avatars in virtual environments.
- Utilizing virtual environments with balanced embodiment and artificial constraints to mimic robot operational conditions.
Main Results:
- Human social cognition processes can inspire valuable robot capabilities.
- Virtual environments with situatedness and bodily involvement allow for embodied social behaviors.
- Artificial constraints in virtual environments can simulate robot perception and communication limitations.
Conclusions:
- Social cognition, encompassing inference, learning, influence, and knowledge transfer, is essential for advanced robot coordination.
- Studying human behavior in constrained virtual environments provides a viable method for developing robot social cognition.
- This approach facilitates the transfer of insights from human social cognition to robotic systems.
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