1. Life in the Humanoid Robotics Group MIT AI Lab
Paul Fitzpatrick

2. Our Goal Natural tasking Respond to humanoid cues
Exhibit humanoid cues

3. Our Methodology Integration Social Interaction Embodiment Development
Development: using simple, early behaviors that serve to structure more complex behaviors. Example: the stages of gaze sensitivity and following seen in infants. Also, growing complexity of environment, best
If just slightly out of reach.
Social interaction: non-hostile world – contigent responses.
Embodiment: grounding representations in sensory-motor interaction. Flexibility?
Integration: different senses have different strengths and weaknesses but considerable overlap, good to combine them.
Development

4. Our Robots

5. Research Issues Our Approaches K n o w i g h a t m e M p b d s C r c fl u z G x k I v S U y A D L P E - ( , )
Research Issues
Our Approaches

6. Research Issues Our Approaches K n o w i g h a t m e M p b d s C r c fl u z G x k I v S U y A D L P E - ( , )
Research Issues
Our Approaches

7. Social Interaction

8. Cynthia
Breazeal

9. Showing and Reading

10. Evaluation Metrics
Must consider human response as well as robot’s behavior
Can people intuitively read and do they naturally respond to Kismet’s social cues?
Does Kismet elicit social cues (scaffolding) from the human that could be used to benefit learning?
Can Kismet perceive and appropriately respond to these naturally offered social cues?
Does the human adapt to the robot, and robot adapt to the human, in a way that benefits the interaction? (entrainment)

11. Research Issues Our Approaches K n o w i g h a t m e M p b d s C r c fl u z G x k I v S U y A D L P E - ( , )
Research Issues
Our Approaches

12. Brian
Scassellati

13. Theory of Mind For complex learning tasks the robot needs to
understand what it is the human knows
about the world
about the robot’s current state
understand what the human is doing and why
understand what is the human

14. Leslie’s Model ToBY Inanimate Objects Mechanical agency ToMM-1
Actional agency
Divides the world into three spheres of causation, each of which is processed by a separate module:
Theory of Body (ToBY) – applies naïve physics to objects
Theory of Mind Mechanism (ToMM) – applies folk psychology to agents
System 1 applies rules of goals and desires
System 2 applies rules of belief and knowledge
ToMM-2
Attitudinal agency

15. Baron-Cohen’s Model Eye Direction Detector (EDD) Intentionality
Eye-like stimuli
Self-Propelled Stimuli
Eye Direction
Detector (EDD)
Intentionality
Detector (ID)
Dyadic representations
(desire, goals)
Dyadic
Representations
(sees)
Shared Attention
Mechanism (SAM)
Requires two types of input stimuli:
Eye-like stimuli
Self-propelled (animate) stimuli
Provides greater detail on the inner workings of Leslie’s ToMM-1 module
Proposes that autism is an impairment of either SAM (subgroup A) or ToMM (subgroup B)
Theory of Mind
Mechanism (ToMM)

16. Pre-attentive filters
Scassellati’s Model
Animate Objects
ToBY
Trajectory
Formation
Face
Finder
Visual
Attention
EDD ID
Pre-attentive filters f f
SAM
Visual Input
Visual Input

17. Animacy Detection
Animate
Inanimate
Animate

18. Elastic Collision Expert Acceleration Sign Change Expert
Animacy Experts
Straight Line Expert
Minimize the sum of the deviations from the mean velocity
Constant mass and the inertial system provides the gravity vector
Energy Expert
Elastic Collision Expert
Look for transfer in velocities before and after collision
Acceleration Sign Change Expert
Look for multiple sign changes in the acceleration

19. Multi-Target Tracking

20. Trajectory Formation t
t+1
t+2
t+3

21. Motion Correspondence
(Reid • Cox and Hingorani 1996)

22. Mimicry

23. Faces and Eyes 300 msec 66 msec Locate target In wide field Foveate
Apply Face
Filter
Software
Zoom
Feature
Extraction
300 msec
66 msec

24. Mimicry

25. Research Issues Our Approaches K n o w i g h a t m e M p b d s C r c fl u z G x k I v S U y A D L P E - ( , )
Research Issues
Our Approaches

27. Matthew
Marjanović

28. “Trying to make a hard thing easier, By making it much harder.”

29. Virtual Musculature

30. Configurable Musculature

31. Virtual Metabolism

32. Hand

33. Giorgio
Metta

34. Reaching

35. Cog’s Sensitive Side