Tom Ziemke
Department of Cognitive Science, University of Skövde, Sweden
There is increasingly much agreement in the cognitive sciences that human cognition is embodied - to some significant extent. However, as I have tried to point out in a number of papers over the last 10-15 years, there is much less agreement regarding in what sense(s) cognition is embodied. In particular, there is much agreement that sensorimotor interaction with the environment is fundamental to cognition. From a historical perspective, this emphasis on the sensorimotor body is at least partly due to the crucial role that the conceptual shift in artificial intelligence (AI) research - from computational to robotic models - has played in the overall development of embodied cognitive science. Most embodied AI research, however, in particular work on symbol grounding and related approaches, reduces the body to a mere sensorimotor interface for internal processes that are still just as computational as they were 30-40 years ago. In Harnad's terms, this type of AI has only gone from a computational to a robotic functionalism. In theory, this could be limited to AI research, but in practice the view of the physical body as the computational mind's sensorimotor interface to the world still pervades much of cognitive science and philosophy of mind. The argument presented here is that there are good reasons to say that at least today's robots are in fact not embodied - in any sense that would allow for human-like embodied cognition - and that this has implications for social interactions between humans and robots.
About the author: Tom Ziemke
Maria Brincker
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, USA
The current zeitgeist is arguably moving towards contextual ways of thinking of cognition and the notion of affordance, with its insistence on relating organisms to environments, perception to action and fact to value, is re-gaining popularity across many fields. In this talk I shall talk about affordances in general but mostly focus on social affordances. I here contrast 3rd person social perception with mutual 2nd person relations. The question is in which ways the reciprocity of relations what is afforded socially. I shall try to disentangle some of the many dynamic complexities that such mutuality imposes on agencies that at the same time respond to and serve as affordances for others, and propose that even many seemingly 3rd person cases involves reciprocity dynamics. Lastly, I shall hint at how such an analysis might be brought to bare in various more distal and online interactions.
About the author: Maria Brincker
Jedediah Allen
Department of Psychology, Bilkent University, Turkey
Neither humans nor robots can be pre-programed to competently operate in the physical or social world: there is too much complexity and it cannot be anticipated beforehand what will be relevant. In the realm of social interaction, both of these issues are especially important, and therefore, both humans and robots must be equipped with the ability to learn from others (social learning) and to develop their ability to learn from others (social meta-learning).
Participation in human culture and advances through cultural evolution have depended on the possibility of robust forms of social learning and social learning development. Imitation is widely thought to be one of these robust forms of social learning but research has not tended to recognize that imitation must itself undergo learning and development. In general, humans are not only capable of learning, but also, they are capable of learning to learn (meta-learning). With respect to social forms of meta-learning children are learning how to use others as a resource for subsequent (social/individual) learning and development. One of the early forms of social meta-learning is when children develop attachment relationships that are adapted to specific people in their caregiving environment. A later emerging form of social meta-learning is social referencing in which children learn to rely on the emotional expression of a caregiver to guide their ongoing activity. In both cases, the social meta-learning is used for subsequent individual learning. Imitation is also of form of social meta-learning that is used, by definition, for social learning. Part of the power of imitation also rest in the fact that it is well suited for learning about both the physical and the social world.
Imitation is often studied with respect to children and animals learning about how to interact with physically opaque objects (i.e., novel artifacts). Debates have tended to focus on whether children and especially animals are required to mindread the demonstrator in order to imitate them “correctly”. The idea in mindreading is that the mental goal, intention, belief, etc. is thought to define the meaning of the social situation and without it, children will not learn about the social reality. However, the meaning of a social situation can also be modeled in terms of a mutually held understanding of some range of possible interactions. I shall argue that mindreading is not necessary for learning about social realities through imitation; the fundamental constraint is coordination.
About the author: Jedediah Allen
Victor Fernandez Castro
University of Granada, Spain
Social cognition research has focused on the debate on the nature of mechanisms underlying social abilities. However, the competing views in the debate share a basic assumption: mental states attribution is central for social cognition. The aim of this paper is two fold: firstly, I present an alternative framework known as mindshaping. According to it, human beings are biologically predisposed to learn and teach cultural and rational norms and complex cultural patterns of behaviourthat enhance social cognition. Secondly I will highlight how this new framework can open new perspectives of research in the area of social robotics.
Mindshaping view can help to shed a new light on social robotics. Firstly, mindshaping is important for developmental robotics for his emphasis in the developmental aspect of social cognition. Secondly, it supposes an alternative to Machiavellian Intelligence hypothesis, and thus, it can shed light on the relationship between general and social intelligence. Finally, I consider mindshaping mechanisms as providing a new way to look at the companion robotics. Companion robotics needs to perform actions in the worlds according to the needs of humans. In other words, they need mechanisms to regulate their own behaviour according to human expectations.
About the author: Victor Fernandez Castro
