Mind RACES

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Mind RACES from Reactive to Anticipatory
Cognitive Embodied Systems
An anticipatory system is a system containing a
predictive model of itself and/or of its
environment that allows it to change state at an
instant in accord with the models predictions
pertaining to a later instant (Robert
Rosen) Prediction is a representation that a
particular event will occur in the
future Anticipation is a future-oriented action
or decision or behavior based on a (implicit or
explicit) prediction
www.mindraces.org FP6-511931 Contact Rino
Falcone (Coordinator) Institute of Cognitive
Sciences and Technologies - CNR Via S. Martino
della Battaglia, 44 00185 Rome, Italy Email
rino.falcone_at_istc.cnr.it

• Our Objectives
• The general goal of Mind RACES is to investigate
  different anticipatory cognitive mechanisms and
  architectures in order to
• build Cognitive Systems endowed with the ability
  to predict the outcome of their actions,
• build a model of future events,
• control their perception anticipating future
  stimuli and
• emotionally react to possible future scenarios
•  
• The above general goal will be achieved by
• incorporating anticipatory functionalities into
  existing cognitive models
• improving anticipatory functionalities of
  existing cognitive models
• integrating different anticipatory
  functionalities of cognitive models.
•  
• More specifically, four different phases have
  been identified in the project
• (1) identification of typologies of problems
  which require different anticipatory cognitive
  capabilities (Attention, Monitoring and Control
  Goal-directed behaviour, Pro-activity and
  Analogy Anticipatory Emotions) this allow to
  design and implement different appropriate
  scenarios.
• (2) improvement of existing anticipatory
  architectures and incorporating missing
  anticipatory functionalities in them. The
  performances of these architectures will be
  tested in the scenarios.
• (3) comparison, in the same scenarios (in order
  to evaluate relative strengths and weaknesses) of
  anticipatory architectures implemented from
  different theoretical backgrounds. In this phase
  we have the opportunity of evaluating if the
  translation of some mechanisms in other
  implementations shows a different performance or
  if it leads to new side effects (that we can
  possibly exploit). This approach privileges (as
  in all the project) the cognitive function set
  over the concrete implementation and will give a
  relevant contribute to the theoretical foundation
  of the mechanisms, extracting the conceptual core
  from the constraints of the single
  implementations.
• (4) design, implementation and testing, in the
  scenarios, of the cognitive architectures that
  integrate different kind of anticipatory
  mechanisms.
• The Structure of the Project

The Consortium ISTC-CNR Institute of Cognitive
Sciences and Technologies of the National
Research Council (Italy) IDSIA - Istituto Dalle
Molle di Studi sull'Intelligenza Artificiale -
Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera
Italiana (Switzerland) IST - Instituto Superior
Técnico (Portugal) LUCS - Lunds Universitet
(Sweden) NBU - New Bulgarian University
(Bulgaria) NOZE - Noze s.r.l. (Italy) OFAI -
Oesterreichische Studiengesellschaft Fuer
Kybernetik (Austria) UW-COGSCI - Bayerische
Julius-Maximilians Universitaet Wuerzburg
(Germany)

• Our Expertise
• - Psychology of Action (ISTC-CNR, UW-COGSCI)
• - Experimental Psychology (NBU)
• Situated and Evolutionary Robotics (ISTC-CNR,
  LUCS, IDSIA-SUPSI, OFAI)
• - Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Modelling
  (OFAI, ITSC-CNR, NBU)
• - Mathematics and Adaptive Robotics (IDSIA-SUPSI)
• - Affective Computing and Human Computer
  Interaction (IST)

www.mindraces.org
Workpackages and their interactions

• The Three Scenarios
• The scenarios highlight the role of anticipation
  in
• Perception and categorization
• Selective attention
• Deliberation
• Action monitoring and control
• Skill learning and routinization
• Coordination
• Emotions

The scenario Finding and Looking for includes
search, optimization of the search (rejecting
unlikely cases), recognition and report for the
object found.
In the scenario Guards and Thieves robots or
agents can have two different roles (guards or
thieves). Some objects are considered to be
valuable and the thiefs aim is to find and pick
them all.
The scenario Anticipation in a Dynamic World
involves prediction of objects that are
characterized by an intrinsic dynamics.