The Robot in the Crib Essay Example for Free

The Robot in the Crib Essay 1) The background or motivation for the study, and the authors’ hypotheses or expectations. One’s life is the distance that one covers from the womb to the tomb. It is the mammoth journey, the joint efforts of about 500million sperm. They travel through the vagina, move to the uterus and reach the fallopian tube. Since sperm have a sense of smell, they smell their way to the egg. When egg and sperm merge and become one, conception takes place. ..And this is the beginning of enquiry, for a set of individuals that are outside the womb-the brain scientists/the developmental psychologists! The growth of two separate yet one consciousnesses, one growing within the other, is the marvel of nature, which is the concern of scientists for investigation. The actual study related to the subject of this article is the post-womb growth of the child, when it comes out after completing the nine month’s journey within. Research has revealed that human beings develop the capacity to understand other’s intentions during early in the first year of life. The developmental scientists lay emphasis of the brilliance of little minds and caution not to underestimate the brain capacity of the babies. It has been observed that the newborn babies, 42 minute old, imitate facial expressions. Stick your tongue out and see that the baby sticking its tongue out. This behavior is the pointer to something intense and deep within. The baby knows more than what you imagine it to know. Why and how the infants behave the way they do? Will roboticsts be able to match and reproduce the movements and talents related to various expressions of infants accurately? This is the prime motivation for research by the Developmental Psychologists. 2) A brief description of the participants, procedure, and methods: What is fundamental to human thought is the ability to read the intentions of other people. Not the physical motions involved, but the goals or intentions that cause these motions are important. Initially, infants’ action is that of grasping. Secondly even when the baby does not physically act on, it has the foundation for understanding when others attend to objects. To cite an example, when a person opens the lid of a box, the baby becomes aware that the goal is not the box, but the object inside the box. Further developments will provide the foundation, the initiative to learn from their caregivers. During the second year, children adopt critical abilities, like language, culturally appropriate behavior etc. They constantly observe the adults and try to emulate them. â€Å"Developmental psychologists have dedicated significant effort to studying the developmental progression of infant imitation skills, because imitation underlies the infant’s ability to understand and learn from his or her social environment.†(Demirisa†¦.) This has been an ideal issue for the roboticsts to intervene and make efforts to equip robots with the ability to observe and emulate human actions. The abilities acquired thus, will equip robots to observe and imitate human actions, paving way for rapid teaching of robots to perform specified tasks. Therefore the analysis relates two fronts. â€Å": (a) initial conditions what is innate in infants, and what functionality is initially given to robots, and (b) Developmental mechanism how does the performance of infants improve over time, and what mechanisms are given to robots to achieve equivalent behavior.†(Demirisa†¦.) The Development of Inverse and Forward Models is another set of model that makes detailed study of infant responses vs. their application in the science of roboticsts, but the child always proves smarter and leaves the robot stranded. Another important theory is the Emotion Theory. Here the mechanism employed is to give the robot with rich, recurring enforcement through emotive channels of communication. This theory offers explanations and possible solutions to the associated questions like how the robot can learn to associate the emotive content on the caretaker’s face with immediate stimulus conditions and action. 3) The main results and important points in the authors’ discussion. The important points in the author’s discussion are the Nature vs. the Nature debate in the natural sciences. The simple tasks performed by the child are very complex from the point t of view of getting them done through robot. It is unanimously agreed that tabula rasa algorithms for robot learning are not going to provide the desired results. It is not practicable to pre-impose designer’s own conceptions on the control structure of robot. â€Å"Imitation, which is seen as a fundamental avenue of learning in humans has been proposed as a promising method for a compromise between the two approaches. The robot architecture is designed to adapt in order to benefit from other agents’ knowledge; imitation can be used as a mechanism of learning for the robot in human and robot societies.†(Demirisa†¦)Human infants are the subject of study by the developmental scientists for more than a century, by observation and experimental techniques. Their issue was simple and direct. With what capabilities the infants are born and how these develop over the period with experience and time. Imitation is one of the important factors. Soon the infants transcend the imitate-the-actions stage and grasp the underlying intentions and goals of demonstrators. Developmental studies of infant imitation skills are the foundation for roboticsts new algorithms. It provides the method for transferring skills from humans to robots 4) In addition, you are required to provide your OWN critique (and not one that was provided by the author/s), which may include problems with any aspect of the study (and how these problems/issues can be addressed), and/or suggestions for future research (if you are suggesting a future study, try to be as specific as possible). Robotics has made tremendous strides but there can never be a perfect robot of an infant. Many things can be achieved, there can be a good robot, but the ultimate robot will never be commissioned. For, robot is the mind product, and the infant is beyond-the-mind product. The knowledge of the robot is pre-programmed, but not that of infants. The comparison between infants and the related robots is as good as comparing the original currency with the devalued currency if not the duplicate one. The infants’ situation is mostly unclear and unpredictable. Infants do observe others to get some of their goals. But they also act with their own intuition and inspiration and perform random acts, which baffle their elders. They have their own special source, the incomparable one, of motivation, for which no precedent exists. So, the original question remains the original question! There can never be a complete robot—but all infants are complete. Every infant is original. For its response follows a pattern known only to it. It has no precedents. Model-based approach to the issue will continue to be researched and modified and the state of finality and perfection can never be reached. Developmental psychology, however, offers infinite possibilities for study and research. The infants are integrated personalities-their traits are that of Commander and soldiers integrated into one. In the role of a commander, the infant will assert its wish, as a soldier will exhibit discipline by obeying the command. This is an unpredictable issue and that is the problem of robticsts, which eludes the solution so far. New issues surface. For example, hierarchical formulations have been proposed and used. This is an interesting area for research with limitless possibilities. The technological advancement and the impact of the TV culture is going to affect the infant responses and the robot designers need to do overtime, to study and understand the implications. Infant development is an extraordinary process, as for brain and behavior. It is the culmination of thousands of experiences each day that happen—their intensity increases as babies move independently and explore their own world. The actions and functions of the robots can only be consequential.