Integration of Robotic Perception, Action, and Memory

In the book On Intelligence , Hawkins states that intelligence should be measured by the capacity to memorize and predict patterns. I further suggest that the ability to predict action consequences based on perception and memory is essential for robots to demonstrate intelligent behaviors in unstructured environments. However, traditional approaches generally represent action and perception separately---as computer vision modules that recognize objects and as planners that execute actions based on labels and poses. I propose here a more integrated approach where action and perception are combined in a memory model, in which a sequence of actions can be planned based on predicted action outcomes. In this framework, hierarchical visual features based on convolutional neural networks are introduced to capture the essential affordances. These features in different hierarchies are associated with robot controllers of corresponding kinematic subchains to support manipulation. Through learning from demonstration, both actions and informative features in the memory model can be learned efficiently. As more demonstrations are recorded and more interactions are observed, the robot becomes more capable of predicting the consequences of actions, thus, is better at planning sequences of actions to solve tasks under different circumstances

Imitation by combination: preschool age children evidence summative imitation in a novel problem-solving task.

Children are exceptional, even \u27super,\u27 imitators but comparatively poor independent problem-solvers or innovators. Yet, imitation and innovation are both necessary components of cumulative cultural evolution. Here, we explored the relationship between imitation and innovation by assessing children\u27s ability to generate a solution to a novel problem by imitating two different action sequences demonstrated by two different models, an example of imitation by combination, which we refer to as summative imitation. Children (N = 181) from 3 to 5 years of age and across three experiments were tested in a baseline condition or in one of six demonstration conditions, varying in the number of models and opening techniques demonstrated. Across experiments, more than 75% of children evidenced summative imitation, opening both compartments of the problem box and retrieving the reward hidden in each. Generally, learning different actions from two different models was as good (and in some cases, better) than learning from 1 model, but the underlying representations appear to be the same in both demonstration conditions. These results show that summative imitation not only facilitates imitation learning but can also result in new solutions to problems, an essential feature of innovation and cumulative culture

Specialization in the vicarious learning of novel arbitrary sequences in humans but not orangutans

Sequence learning underlies many uniquely human behaviours, from complex tool use to language and ritual. To understand whether this fundamental cognitive feature is uniquely derived in humans requires a comparative approach. We propose that the vicarious (but not individual) learning of novel arbitrary sequences represents a human cognitive specialization. To test this hypothesis, we compared the abilities of human children aged 3–5 years and orangutans to learn different types of arbitrary sequences (item-based and spatial-based). Sequences could be learned individually (by trial and error) or vicariously from a human (social) demonstrator or a computer (ghost control). We found that both children and orangutans recalled both types of sequence following trial-and-error learning; older children also learned both types of sequence following social and ghost demonstrations. Orangutans' success individually learning arbitrary sequences shows that their failure to do so in some vicarious learning conditions is not owing to general representational problems. These results provide new insights into some of the most persistent discontinuities observed between humans and other great apes in terms of complex tool use, language and ritual, all of which involve the cultural learning of novel arbitrary sequences

INVESTIGATING SUCCESS BIASED TRANSMISSION, AND LONG-TERM MEMORY CAPABILITIES, IN CHIMPANZEES AND CHILDREN: IMPLICATIONS FOR CUMULATIVE CULTURE.

Cumulative culture denotes the arguably human capacity to build on the developments of our predecessors. Factors such as imitation, teaching and cultural transmission biases have been identified as important for cumulative culture. In this thesis factors with implications for cumulative culture were investigated in chimpanzees and 4-to 5-year old children. Two experiments were designed to assess success biased copying in chimpanzees (and children) and a third study investigated chimpanzees’ retention and transfer of complex tool use skills. Information pertaining to success derived from others’ performances influenced both chimpanzees and children’s subsequent actions during a video based foraging task and token exchange task. Specifically, some of the first evidence for public information use and payoff biased transmission was documented in both species and thus suggests that a lack of such assessment abilities does not underlie the lack of cumulative culture in chimpanzees. In the final empirical study, some of the first evidence for appreciable long-term memory and improvements in the utility of complex tool manufacture was documented in chimpanzees. High fidelity retention of (socially) learned information is important for cumulative culture, where behaviour must be retained with sufficient fidelity for it to be reproduced. This is especially so where, for example, tool use is required to access temporally rare resources (e.g. nuts falling certain months of the year/seasonal resources)

Social learning and creativity in children in informal learning environments

Social learning, together with innovation, form the pillars of human culture. The vast majority of research regarding innovation and social learning uses artificially created tasks (e. g. puzzle boxes) with clear goals. Studies with children are performed in nurseries, psychology laboratories and in separate rooms in science centres. This enables studies to have high experimental/internal validity. However, it is not known whether these findings also explain behaviours outside of controlled environments. In this thesis I explored how social learning and creativity could be studied in the context of an informal learning environment (Life Science Centre, Newcastle) using an open-ended task, representing a context of increased ecological validity. In Chapter 3 I explored how direct instructions, scaffolding (open questions) and no instructions impacted children’s exploratory behaviour and their creativity when building with shapeshifting wooden blocks that constituted an existing exhibit in the science centre. In Chapter 4 I used an exhibit, the Interactive Research Pod (IRP), which was developed through cooperation between Durham University academics and Life Science Centre practitioners to study social learning and creativity “in the wild” whereby no experimenter is present and instructions, cameras and ethical assent is automated. I studied children, who were using building blocks, in social (transparent partitions), asocial (opaque partitions, building at or around the same time) and asocial control (opaque partitions, different day). In Chapter 5 I used the IRP to enable children to freely interact whilst building and investigated social learning and cooperation as well as the originality of the final structures. In all three studies I used a newly developed web application to evaluate the creativity of the structures children built. I recruited adult raters to acquire a relatively objective measure of the subjective value of the originality of the wooden structures. I used Bayesian statistical methods to analyse the data. Overall children built diverse structures and were not strongly impacted by the conditions (direct instruction, scaffolding, no instruction, social, asocial learning and cooperation) they were in. The findings of the thesis complement existing data regarding social learning and creativity in children in more controlled environments and demonstrate the utility of conducting such studies in ecologically valid contexts, despite the inherent issues of internal validity

Behavioral conservatism is linked to complexity of behavior in chimpanzees (<i>Pan troglodytes</i>):implications for cognition and cumulative culture

Cumulative culture is rare, if not altogether absent in nonhuman species. At the foundation of cumulative learning is the ability to modify, relinquish, or build upon previous behaviors flexibly to make them more productive or efficient. Within the primate literature, a failure to optimize solutions in this way is often proposed to derive from low-fidelity copying of witnessed behaviors, suboptimal social learning heuristics, or a lack of relevant sociocognitive adaptations. However, humans can also be markedly inflexible in their behaviors, perseverating with, or becoming fixated on, outdated or inappropriate responses. Humans show differential patterns of flexibility as a function of cognitive load, exhibiting difficulties with inhibiting suboptimal behaviors when there are high demands on working memory. We present a series of studies on captive chimpanzees that indicate that behavioral conservatism in apes may be underlain by similar constraints: Chimpanzees showed relatively little conservatism when behavioral optimization involved the inhibition of a well-established but simple solution, or the addition of a simple modification to a well-established but complex solution. In contrast, when behavioral optimization involved the inhibition of a well-established but complex solution, chimpanzees showed evidence of conservatism. We propose that conservatism is linked to behavioral complexity, potentially mediated by cognitive resource availability, and may be an important factor in the evolution of cumulative culture.</p