Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Adaptive Behavior
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Gigliotta, O.
Right arrow Articles by Nolfi, S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?

On the Coupling Between Agent Internal and Agent/ Environmental Dynamics: Development of Spatial Representations in Evolving Autonomous Robots

Onofrio Gigliotta

Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, CNR, Rome, Italy, Department of Psychology, University of Palermo, Palermo, onofrio.gigliotta{at}istc.cnr.it

Stefano Nolfi

Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, CNR, Rome, Italy, stefano.nolfi{at}istc.cnr.it

In this article we describe how a population of evolving robots can autonomously develop forms of spatial representation which allow them to self-localize and to discriminate different locations of their environment by integrating sensory-motor information over time. The evolving robots also display a remarkable ability to generalize their skill in new environmental conditions that they have never experienced before. The analysis of the obtained results indicates that the evolved robots come up with simple and robust solutions that exploit quasi-periodic limit cycle dynamics emerging from the coupling between the robot/environmental dynamics and a robot's internal dynamics. More specifically, the variations of a robot's internal states are governed by transient dynamical processes originating from the fact that these internal states tend to slowly approximate fixed attractor points, corresponding to different types of sensory states that last for a limited time duration and alternate while the robot moves in the environment.

Key Words: spatial representation • evolution • transient dynamic

Adaptive Behavior, Vol. 16, No. 2-3, 148-165 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1059712308089184
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?