Reachable by walking: inappropriate integration of near and far space may lead to distance errors

Abstract

Our experimental results show that infants while learning to walk intend to reach for unreachable objects. These distance errors may result from inappropriate integration of reaching and locomotor actions, attention control and near/far visual space. Infants during their first months are fairly immobile, their attention and actions are constrained to near (reachable) space. Walking, in contrast, lures attention to distal displays and provides the information to disambiguate far space. In this paper, we make use of a reward-mediated learning to mimic the development of absolute distance perception. The results obtained with the NAO robot support further our hypothesis that the representation of near space changes after the onset of walking, which may cause the occurrence of distance errors.