Cognitive Perspectives on Robot Behavior

A growing body of research within the field of intelligent robotics argues for a view of intelligence drastically different from classical artificial intelligence and cognitive science. The holistic and embodied ideas expressed by this research promote the view that intelligence is an emergent phenomenon. Similar perspectives, where numerous interactions within the system lead to emergent properties and cognitive abilities beyond that of the individual parts, can be found within many scientific fields. With the goal of understanding how behavior may be represented in robots, the present review tries to grasp what this notion of emergence really means and compare it with a selection of theories developed for analysis of human cognition, including the extended mind, distributed cognition and situated action. These theories reveal a view of intelligence where common notions of objects, goals, language and reasoning have to be rethought. A view where behavior, as well as the agent as such, is defined by the observer rather than given by their nature. Structures in the environment emerge by interaction rather than recognized. In such a view, the fundamental question is how emergent systems appear and develop, and how they may be controlled