Intro to CogSci: Embodiment 1

Symbolism & connectionism vs. Embodiment
Intelligence in action
Embodied congition
Cognition and Environment
Intelligence without representation
Cognitive science paradigms: Embodiment
Kristína Rebrová
Kristína Rebrová Cognitive science paradigms: Embodiment

Embodied congition
Contents
1 Symbolism & connectionism vs. Embodiment
2 Intelligence in action
3 Embodied congition
4 Cognition and Environment
5 Intelligence without representation

Embodied congition
Physical symbol system hypothesis
(Newell & Simon, 1976)
Physical symbol system is a necessary and suﬃcient condition
for general intelligent action.
Physical symbol system is a machine that produces through
time an evolving collection of physical patterns called symbol
structures.
Arbitrary links from symbolic code to sensori-motor referents
Intelligence occurs via reasoning (searching for operators;
logical inference)
Intelligence = computation - separate from sensors and
eﬀectors
Intelligence in nature (animals might behave intelligently, but
not think so much as humans)

Embodied congition
(more) Traditional approaches
Symbolism
thought is a manipulation of abstract symbol
implies process of designing, and an external interpreter
Connectionism
knowledge is encoded in weights and structure of the network
implies learning, but what is learned also has to be interpreted
Problems
frame problem
symbol grounding problem

Embodied congition
Embodiment
having a physical body
what does it mean for the
agent’s cognition?
what does it mean for a
cognitive scientist?
PSSH type approaches
emphasize thinking... what
about intelligence based on
acting?

Embodied congition
William Grey Walter
neurophysiologist and robotician (February 19, 1910 – May 6, 1977)
Machina speculatrix (1948-49) robots Elmer and Elsie, tortoises
capable of phototaxis, by which they could ﬁnd their way to a
recharging station when they ran low on battery power
the turtle’s complex physical behavior rests on:
simple circuit of two sensors, two vacuum tube "neurons" and
some RC components and two relays
recursive mechanical feedback loop between the turtle motors,
the physical environment (light and obstacles) and the circuit
analog processes to simulate brain processes
(Turing, Von Neuman: digital processes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLULRlmXkKo

Embodied congition
Braitenberg vehicles (1984)
sensors – light detectors + actuators –
wheels
behavior depends on connections between
sensors and wheels
strive to achieve certain situations and
avoid others
change the course when the situation
changes
exhibit a complex and dynamic behavior
dependent on their “bodies”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJo5HEdq6y0

Embodied congition
Intelligence by Mechanics
Passive Walkers
McGeer (1990)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK8IFEGmiKY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N64KOQkbyiI
Theo Jansen - Kinetic Sculptor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcR7U2tuNoY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI90TgmjX4U

Embodied congition
Intelligence by Material
Example: Octopus Project
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW3XMPi_wng

Embodied congition
Embodied cognition
an agent’s embodiment and situatedness is constitutive of its
perceiving, knowing and doing
Groundedness: cognition grounded (anchored) in the physical
world = embodied + embedded
embodied: agent has a body that provides direct sensations
and allows actions
embedded: situated in an environment that provides concrete
experience
both body and environment constitute, enhance, but also limit
agent’s intelligence
Situatedness: agent acquires knowledge about its environment
only through sensors and in interaction with the world

Embodied congition
Complete autonomous agents
Pfeifer & Scheier, 1999
“Fungus eaters” (Toda, 1982)
able to survive in complex
environment
Complete
behaving autonomously
Situated
view the world from their
perspective
Embodied
physical agents, sensors, actuators
Self-suﬃcient
gather food, make energy
able to sustain itself over extended periods of timeKristína Rebrová Cognitive science paradigms: Embodiment

Embodied congition
Complete autonomous agents
Autonomy
No control from the outside (from the designer)
Increased by: self-suﬃciency, situatedness, learning or
development, and evolution
Action selection problem
behavior control & design
observer based segmentation of behavior
no straightforward mapping of desired behaviors to internal
actions

Embodied congition
Adaptation
Evolutionary
peppered moth
Physiological
adaptation to changes in
temperature
Sensory
changes in the diameter
of the pupil
By learning

Embodied congition
Frame-of-reference problem
from Pfeifer and Scheier (1999)
Perspective: observer vs. agent
Behavior-vs-mechanism: behavior cannot be explained on the
basis of internal mechanisms only
Complexity: the complexity we observe != complexity of the
underlying mechanisms

Embodied congition
Ecological niche
The range of each environmental variable such as temperature,
humidity, and food items, within which a species can exist
andreproduce (Wilson, 1975)
Environment must be characterized with respect to agent’s
complexity
But also complexity of the environment is a prerequisite for the
complexity of an agent’s behavior

Embodied congition
Umwelt (1984)
self-centered world
Biology should study organisms not as objects, but as active
subjects.
Organisms can have diﬀerent Umwelten, even though they
share the same environment
Umwelt = subjective world of an organism
individual organism is always actively creating it’s individual
Umwelt.
is formed by perceptual and eﬀector worlds together
this creative process is related to meanings determined by the
animal’s internal states, needs, design, etc.

Embodied congition
Umwelt of a tick
Tick has 3 successive reﬂexes:
Butyric acid as perceptual cue – tic let go and drops
Tactile cue of hair – move around
Skin’s heat – suck

Embodied congition
Diﬀerent visual Umwelten
(Uexküll, Brock 1927)

Embodied congition
Wirkwelten (eﬀect worlds) of a human, a dog and a ﬂy
(Uexküll, Kriszat 1934: 56–58)

Embodied congition
Intelligence without representation (Brooks, 1987)
Competences – layers
added incrementally
Situated & embodied
the world is its own best model
no abstract representation needed
Inspiration from evolution
. . . “mobility, acute vision and the ability to carry out
survivalent tasks in dynamic environment provide a necessary
basis for development of true intelligence.”

Embodied congition
Brooks’ creatures
Engineering methodology
Creatures
cope appropriately and timely with changes in environment
are robust
maintain multiple goals
do something, have purpose in being
Decomposition by activity (pattern of interactions with the
world)
Tested in the real world

Embodied congition
Levels of activity
Run in parallel unaware of any other higher levels and compete
Extract only relevant aspects of the world
Low-level activities
reactions to dangerous/important changes in environment
up-to-date idea about the world

Embodied congition
Subsumption architecture
Suppression
New layer is connected to the input of the existing layer and
suppresses new (incoming) messages
Inhibition
New layer is connected to output and inhibits outgoing
messages on the existing layer
Higher levels send information to lower levels
Levels are built incrementally and tested at each step
Modular architecture (brain modalities similarity)

Embodied congition
Problems of SA
How many layers can be built?
How complex behaviors can be made without central
processing unit?
Can higher-level functions (e.g. learning) occur in ﬁxed
topology networks of simple ﬁnite state machines?

Embodied congition
Representing the Body
Example: Starﬁsh Self Modeling Robot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehno85yI-sA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msw267lisow

Embodied congition
Forward and Iverse model
cognition is about anticipation and planning
Wolpert and Kawato (1998), Wolpert et al. (2003)
forward: to generate predictions about the next state of the
world
inverse: reversely activating actions that could possibly lead to
the observed situation
work together

Embodied congition
The end
Thank you for your attention
kristina.rebrova@gmail.com

Embodied congition
Lets have fun...
army robot Big Dog:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
buggy beta version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXJZVZFRFJc

Intro to CogSci: Embodiment 1

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