93 research outputs found
Place cognition and active perception: a study with evolved robots
A study of place cognition and 'place units' in robots produced via artificial evolution is described. Previous studies have investigated the possible role of place cells as building blocks for 'cognitive maps' representing place, distance and direction. Studies also show, however, that when animals are restrained, the spatial selectivity of place cells is partially or completely lost. This suggests that the role of place cells in spatial cognition depends not only on the place cells themselves, but also on representations of the animal's physical interactions with its environment. This hypothesis is tested in a population of evolved robots. The results suggest that successful place cognition requires not only the ability to process spatial information, but also the ability to select the environmental stimuli to which the agent is exposed. If this is so, theories of active perception can make a useful contribution to explaining the role of place cells in spatial cognition
Theoretical Perspectives of Hands-On Educational Practices — From a Review of Psychological Theories to Block Magic and INF@NZIA DIGI.Tales 3.6 Projects
In this chapter, the main theories related to cognitive development are discussed, starting from psychological discussion up to theories application to training, pedagogical and formation sciences issues
Educational Robotics to Foster and Assess Social Relations in Students' Groups
Robotics has gained, in recent years, a significant role in educational processes that take place in formal, non-formal, and informal contexts, mainly in the subjects related to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Indeed, educational robotics (ER) can be fruitfully applied also to soft skills, as it allows promoting social links between students, if it is proposed as a group activity. Working in a group to solve a problem or to accomplish a task in the robotics field allows fostering new relations and overcoming the constraints of the established links associated to the school context. Together with this aspect, ER offers an environment where it is possible to assess group dynamics by means of sociometric tools. In this paper, we will describe an example of how ER can be used to foster and assess social relations in students' group. In particular, we report a study that compares: (1) a laboratory with robots, (2) a laboratory with Scratch for coding, and (3) a control group. This study involved Italian students attending middle school. As the focus of this experiment was to study relations in students' group, we used the sociometric tools proposed by Moreno. Results show that involving students in a robotics lab can effectively foster relations between students and, jointly with sociometric tools, can be employed to portrait group dynamics in a synthetic and manageable way
Inf@nzia Digi.Tales 3.6: un’esperienza di introduzione di strumenti innovativi per l’apprendimento nella fascia di età 3-6 anni
Inf@nzia Digi.Tales 3.6 è un progetto che ha avuto l’obiettivo di sviluppare metodologie e tecnologie di apprendimento innovative a supporto delle attività educative curriculari nella scuola dell’infanzia e nel primo anno della scuola primaria, come l’esplorazione spontanea o guidata, che sfrutta il ruolo centrale del tatto, della manipolazione e di tutti e cinque i sensi. Il progetto ha affrontato l’apprendimento al di fuori del contesto scolastico: ha stabilito un continuum scuola-famiglia-città , valorizzando il contesto socioculturale e territoriale; ha inoltre coinvolto amministrazioni scolastiche, docenti e famiglie, sviluppando metodologie partecipative, per accrescere il senso di corresponsabilità educativa, e promuovendo azioni per migliorare la qualità dei servizi amministrativi
Situated Psychological Agents: A Methodology for Educational Games
In recent years, the ever-increasing need for valid and effective training to acquire competences in multiform contexts has led to a wide diffusion of educational games (EG). In spite of their diffusion, there is still a need to reflect on the design process that should embed the games’ pedagogical potential and the instructional process in the entertainment scope. Moreover, as building EG, especially in digital environments, is an enterprise that involves specialists with different expertise, it can be useful to have a shared methodology that is easily understandable and usable by many users. In this paper, we propose to use situated psychological agents (SPA) as a methodology to design and build effective EG and show how to represent games in terms of SPA and their interactions by diagrams and describe different examples of how this approach has been applied
Un modello di Robotica Evolutiva e Collettiva ispirato ai corvidi
Un modello di Robotica Evolutiva e Collettiva ispirato ai corvidi
Nei primi anni della Robotica Evolutiva l'attenzione si è concentrata sull' emergenze di comportamenti piuttosto
semplici. Col tempo per ottenere comportamenti più complessi si poteva optare per aumentare la complessitÃ
all'interno del robot o all'esterno del robot.
Un comportamento complesso può derivare da uno o due organismi piuttosto complessi o da moltissimi agenti
molto semplici che interagiscono tra loro e con il loro ambiente, che si auto-organizzano sotto la pressione
evolutiva. Attualmente la robotica collettiva in cui non è importante il singolo agente, ma il gruppo nella sua totalità trae ispirazione daggli insetti sociali, ma bisognerebbe anche guardare ad altri componenti del regno animale come
primati, corvidi, delfini che cooperano. In questo caso abbiamo pochi agenti che lavorano insime per ottenere un risultato altrimenti impossibile. In questo lavoro descriviamo un modello di Robotica Evolutiva ispirato ai corvidi
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