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  • © 2013

Computational and Robotic Models of the Hierarchical Organization of Behavior

  • Interdisciplinary authors from related disciplines such as artificial intelligence, robotics, artificial life, evolution, machine learning, developmental psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience

  • Identifies scientific and technological open challenges and most promising research directions

  • Shows evidence that modularity and hierarchy are pivotal organization principles of behavior

  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vi
  2. Hierarchical Organization of Behavior in Robots

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11
    2. Behavioral Hierarchy: Exploration and Representation

      • Andrew G. Barto, George Konidaris, Christopher Vigorito
      Pages 13-46
    3. Autonomous Representation Learning in a Developing Agent

      • Jonathan Mugan, Benjamin Kuipers
      Pages 63-80
    4. Hierarchies for Embodied Action Perception

      • Dimitri Ognibene, Yan Wu, Kyuhwa Lee, Yiannis Demiris
      Pages 81-98
  3. Hierarchical Organization of Animal Behavior

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 127-127
    2. Modular, Multimodal Arm Control Models

      • Stephan Ehrenfeld, Oliver Herbort, Martin V. Butz
      Pages 129-154
    3. Generalization and Interference in Human Motor Control

      • Luca Lonini, Christos Dimitrakakis, Constantin Rothkopf, Jochen Triesch
      Pages 155-176
    4. A Developmental Framework for Cumulative Learning Robots

      • Mark Lee, James Law, Martin Hülse
      Pages 177-212
    5. The Hierarchical Accumulation of Knowledge in the Distributed Adaptive Control Architecture

      • Encarni Marcos, Milanka Ringwald, Armin Duff, Martí Sánchez-Fibla, Paul F. M. J. Verschure
      Pages 213-234
  4. Hierarchical Organization of Animal Brain

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 235-235
    2. Divide and Conquer: Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning and Task Decomposition in Humans

      • Carlos Diuk, Anna Schapiro, Natalia Córdova, José Ribas-Fernandes, Yael Niv, Matthew Botvinick
      Pages 271-291
    3. Neural Network Modelling of Hierarchical Motor Function in the Brain

      • Juan M. Galeazzi, Simon M. Stringer
      Pages 293-317
    4. Restoring Purpose in Behavior

      • Henry H. Yin
      Pages 319-347
  5. Back Matter

    Pages 349-358

About this book

Current robots and other artificial systems are typically able to accomplish only one single task. Overcoming this limitation requires the development of control architectures and learning algorithms that can support the acquisition and deployment of several different skills, which in turn seems to require a modular and hierarchical organization. In this way, different modules can acquire different skills without catastrophic interference, and higher-level components of the system can solve complex tasks by exploiting the skills encapsulated in the lower-level modules. While machine learning and robotics recognize the fundamental importance of the hierarchical organization of behavior for building robots that scale up to solve complex tasks, research in psychology and neuroscience shows increasing evidence that modularity and hierarchy are pivotal organization principles of behavior and of the brain. They might even lead to the cumulative acquisition of an ever-increasing number of skills, which seems to be a characteristic of mammals, and humans in particular.

This book is a comprehensive overview of the state of the art on the modeling of the hierarchical organization of behavior in animals, and on its exploitation in robot controllers. The book perspective is highly interdisciplinary, featuring models belonging to all relevant areas, including machine learning, robotics, neural networks, and computational modeling in psychology and neuroscience. The book chapters review the authors' most recent contributions to the investigation of hierarchical behavior, and highlight the open questions and most promising research directions. As the contributing authors are among the pioneers carrying out fundamental work on this topic, the book covers the most important and topical issues in the field from a computationally informed, theoretically oriented perspective. The book will be of benefit to academic and industrial researchers and graduate students in related disciplines.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, Rome, Italy

    Gianluca Baldassarre, Marco Mirolli

About the editors

Dr. Gianluca Baldassarre is a Researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) where he is a member of the Laboratory of Computational Embodied Neuroscience; his research interests include computational embodied neuroscience, psychology, neuroscience, developmental robotics, artificial life, and machine learning.

 

Dr. Marco Mirolli is a Researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) where he is a member of the Laboratory of Computational Embodied Neuroscience Laboratory; his research interests lie in the study of behavior through computer simulations, in particular the evolution of communication and language, the role of language as a cognitive tool, the biological bases of motivations and emotions, and the role of intrinsic motivations in cumulative learning.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Computational and Robotic Models of the Hierarchical Organization of Behavior

  • Editors: Gianluca Baldassarre, Marco Mirolli

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39875-9

  • Publisher: Springer Berlin, Heidelberg

  • eBook Packages: Computer Science, Computer Science (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-642-39874-2Published: 02 December 2013

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-662-51402-3Published: 23 August 2016

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-642-39875-9Published: 19 November 2013

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: VI, 358

  • Number of Illustrations: 43 b/w illustrations, 73 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Control, Robotics, Mechatronics, Computational Intelligence, Neurosciences, Psychology Research

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access