Author
Imre, M., Öztop, Erhan, Nagai, Y., Ugur, E.
Publication Date
2019-08
Publication Place
-
Sage
Subject
Altruistic behavior, Computational modeling, Brain-inspired robotics, Affordances, Human-robot interaction, Goal inference
Type
Periodical
Language
English
Digital
Yes
Manuscript
No
Library
Özyeğin University
Library Asset ID
1059-7123
Record ID
876eca76-29d1-408b-be1a-e68847dc4443
Library Location
Computer Science
Date
2019-08
Notes
European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program ; JST CREST "Cognitive Mirroring: Assisting people with developmental disorders by means of self-understanding and social sharing of cognitive processes'' ; Bogazici Research Fund (BAP) project IMAGINE-COG++
Sample Text
This article proposes a computational model for altruistic behavior, shows its implementation on a physical robot, and presents the results of human-robot interaction experiments conducted with the implemented system. Inspired from the sensorimotor mechanisms of the primate brain, object affordances are utilized for both intention estimation and action execution, in particular, to generate altruistic behavior. At the core of the model is the notion that sensorimotor systems developed for movement generation can be used to process the visual stimuli generated by actions of the others, infer the goals behind, and take the necessary actions to help achieving these goals, potentially leading to the emergence of altruistic behavior. Therefore, we argue that altruistic behavior is not necessarily a consequence of deliberate cognitive processing but may emerge through basic sensorimotor processes such as error minimization, that is, minimizing the difference between the observed and expected outcomes. In the model, affordances also play a key role by constraining the possible set of actions that an observed actor might be engaged in, enabling a fast and accurate intention inference. The model components are implemented on an upper-body humanoid robot. A set of experiments are conducted validating the workings of the components of the model, such as affordance extraction and task execution. Significantly, to assess how human partners interact with our altruistic model deployed robot, extensive experiments with naive subjects are conducted. Our results indicate that the proposed computational model can explain emergent altruistic behavior in reference to its biological counterpart and moreover engage human partners to exploit this behavior when implemented on an anthropomorphic robot.
DOI
10.1177/1059712318824697
Cilt
27
