Evolutionary robotics and neuroscience

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The dimensions of personality in humans and other animals: A comparative and evolutionary perspective

This paper considers the structure and proximate mechanisms of personality in humans and other animals. Significant similarities were found between personality structures and mechanisms across species in at least two broad traits: Extraversion and Neuroticism. The factor space tapped by these personality dimensions is viewed as a general integrative framework for comparative and evolutionary studies of personality in humans and other animals. Most probably, the cross-species similarities between the most broad personality dimensions like Extraversion and Neuroticism as well as other Big Five factors reflect conservative evolution: constrains on evolution imposed by physiological, genetic and cognitive mechanisms. Lower-order factors, which are more species- and situation-specific, would be adaptive, reflecting correlated selection on and trade-offs between many traits

Combining motion planning with social reward sources for collaborative human-robot navigation task design

Across the human history, teamwork is one of the main pillars sustaining civilizations and technology development. In consequence, as the world embraces omatization, human-robot collaboration arises naturally as a cornerstone. This applies to a huge spectrum of tasks, most of them involving navigation. As a result, tackling pure collaborative navigation tasks can be a good first foothold for roboticists in this enterprise. In this thesis, we define a useful framework for knowledge representation in human-robot collaborative navigation tasks and propose a first solution to the human-robot collaborative search task. After validating the model, two derived projects tackling its main weakness are introduced: the compilation of a human search dataset and the implementation of a multi-agent planner for human-robot navigatio

Flora robotica -- An Architectural System Combining Living Natural Plants and Distributed Robots

Key to our project flora robotica is the idea of creating a bio-hybrid system of tightly coupled natural plants and distributed robots to grow architectural artifacts and spaces. Our motivation with this ground research project is to lay a principled foundation towards the design and implementation of living architectural systems that provide functionalities beyond those of orthodox building practice, such as self-repair, material accumulation and self-organization. Plants and robots work together to create a living organism that is inhabited by human beings. User-defined design objectives help to steer the directional growth of the plants, but also the system's interactions with its inhabitants determine locations where growth is prohibited or desired (e.g., partitions, windows, occupiable space). We report our plant species selection process and aspects of living architecture. A leitmotif of our project is the rich concept of braiding: braids are produced by robots from continuous material and serve as both scaffolds and initial architectural artifacts before plants take over and grow the desired architecture. We use light and hormones as attraction stimuli and far-red light as repelling stimulus to influence the plants. Applied sensors range from simple proximity sensing to detect the presence of plants to sophisticated sensing technology, such as electrophysiology and measurements of sap flow. We conclude by discussing our anticipated final demonstrator that integrates key features of flora robotica, such as the continuous growth process of architectural artifacts and self-repair of living architecture.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figure

Preclinical and clinical evidence on the approach-avoidance conflict evaluation as an integrative tool for psychopathology

The approach-avoidance conflict (AAC), i.e. the competing tendencies to undertake goal-directed actions or to withdraw from everyday life challenges, stands at the basis of humans' existence defining behavioural and personality domains. Gray's Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory posits that a stable bias toward approach or avoidance represents a psychopathological trait associated with excessive sensitivity to reward or punishment. Optogenetic studies in rodents and imaging studies in humans associated with cross-species AAC paradigms granted new emphasis to the hippocampus as a hub of behavioural inhibition. For instance, recent functional neuroimaging studies show that functional brain activity in the human hippocampus correlates with threat perception and seems to underlie passive avoidance. Therefore, our commentary aims to (i) discuss the inhibitory role of the hippocampus in approach-related behaviours and (ii) promote the integration of functional neuroimaging with cross-species AAC paradigms as a means of diagnostic, therapeutic, follow up and prognosis refinement in psychiatric populations

The Evolution of Reaction-diffusion Controllers for Minimally Cognitive Agents

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