How Developmental Psychology and Robotics Complement Each Other

Abstract

This paper presents two complementary ideas re-lating the study of human development and the construction of intelligent artifacts. First, the use of developmental models will be a critical require-ment in the construction of robotic systems that can acquire a large repertoire of motor, percep-tual, and cognitive capabilities. Second, robotic systems can be used as a test-bed for evaluating models of human development much in the same way that simulation studies are currently used to evaluate cognitive models. To further explore these ideas, two examples from the author's own work will be presented: the use of developmental models of hand-eye coordination to simplify the task of learning to reach for a visual target and the use of a humanoid robot to evaluate models of normal and abnormal social skill development.