28,218 research outputs found
On Neuromechanical Approaches for the Study of Biological Grasp and Manipulation
Biological and robotic grasp and manipulation are undeniably similar at the
level of mechanical task performance. However, their underlying fundamental
biological vs. engineering mechanisms are, by definition, dramatically
different and can even be antithetical. Even our approach to each is
diametrically opposite: inductive science for the study of biological systems
vs. engineering synthesis for the design and construction of robotic systems.
The past 20 years have seen several conceptual advances in both fields and the
quest to unify them. Chief among them is the reluctant recognition that their
underlying fundamental mechanisms may actually share limited common ground,
while exhibiting many fundamental differences. This recognition is particularly
liberating because it allows us to resolve and move beyond multiple paradoxes
and contradictions that arose from the initial reasonable assumption of a large
common ground. Here, we begin by introducing the perspective of neuromechanics,
which emphasizes that real-world behavior emerges from the intimate
interactions among the physical structure of the system, the mechanical
requirements of a task, the feasible neural control actions to produce it, and
the ability of the neuromuscular system to adapt through interactions with the
environment. This allows us to articulate a succinct overview of a few salient
conceptual paradoxes and contradictions regarding under-determined vs.
over-determined mechanics, under- vs. over-actuated control, prescribed vs.
emergent function, learning vs. implementation vs. adaptation, prescriptive vs.
descriptive synergies, and optimal vs. habitual performance. We conclude by
presenting open questions and suggesting directions for future research. We
hope this frank assessment of the state-of-the-art will encourage and guide
these communities to continue to interact and make progress in these important
areas
Neural Models of Temporally Organized Behaviors: Handwriting Production and Working Memory
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ONR N00014-92-J-4015); Office of Naval Research (N00014-91-J-4100, N00014-92-J-1309
More Than a Feeling: Learning to Grasp and Regrasp using Vision and Touch
For humans, the process of grasping an object relies heavily on rich tactile
feedback. Most recent robotic grasping work, however, has been based only on
visual input, and thus cannot easily benefit from feedback after initiating
contact. In this paper, we investigate how a robot can learn to use tactile
information to iteratively and efficiently adjust its grasp. To this end, we
propose an end-to-end action-conditional model that learns regrasping policies
from raw visuo-tactile data. This model -- a deep, multimodal convolutional
network -- predicts the outcome of a candidate grasp adjustment, and then
executes a grasp by iteratively selecting the most promising actions. Our
approach requires neither calibration of the tactile sensors, nor any
analytical modeling of contact forces, thus reducing the engineering effort
required to obtain efficient grasping policies. We train our model with data
from about 6,450 grasping trials on a two-finger gripper equipped with GelSight
high-resolution tactile sensors on each finger. Across extensive experiments,
our approach outperforms a variety of baselines at (i) estimating grasp
adjustment outcomes, (ii) selecting efficient grasp adjustments for quick
grasping, and (iii) reducing the amount of force applied at the fingers, while
maintaining competitive performance. Finally, we study the choices made by our
model and show that it has successfully acquired useful and interpretable
grasping behaviors.Comment: 8 pages. Published on IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RAL).
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/more-than-a-feelin
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Individual Differences in Dopamine Are Associated with Reward Discounting in Clinical Groups But Not in Healthy Adults.
Some people are more willing to make immediate, risky, or costly reward-focused choices than others, which has been hypothesized to be associated with individual differences in dopamine (DA) function. In two studies using PET imaging, one empirical (Study 1: N = 144 males and females across 3 samples) and one meta-analytic (Study 2: N = 307 across 12 samples), we sought to characterize associations between individual differences in DA and time, probability, and physical effort discounting in human adults. Study 1 demonstrated that individual differences in DA D2-like receptors were not associated with time or probability discounting of monetary rewards in healthy humans, and associations with physical effort discounting were inconsistent across adults of different ages. Meta-analytic results for temporal discounting corroborated our empirical finding for minimal effect of DA measures on discounting in healthy individuals but suggested that associations between individual differences in DA and reward discounting depend on clinical features. Addictions were characterized by negative correlations between DA and discounting, but other clinical conditions, such as Parkinson's disease, obesity, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, were characterized by positive correlations between DA and discounting. Together, the results suggest that trait differences in discounting in healthy adults do not appear to be strongly associated with individual differences in D2-like receptors. The difference in meta-analytic correlation effects between healthy controls and individuals with psychopathology suggests that individual difference findings related to DA and reward discounting in clinical samples may not be reliably generalized to healthy controls, and vice versa.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Decisions to forgo large rewards for smaller ones due to increasing time delays, uncertainty, or physical effort have been linked to differences in dopamine (DA) function, which is disrupted in some forms of psychopathology. It remains unclear whether alterations in DA function associated with psychopathology also extend to explaining associations between DA function and decision making in healthy individuals. We show that individual differences in DA D2 receptor availability are not consistently related to monetary discounting of time, probability, or physical effort in healthy individuals across a broad age range. By contrast, we suggest that psychopathology accounts for observed inconsistencies in the relationship between measures of DA function and reward discounting behavior
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