Section: New Software and Platforms

Virtual Enaction

Participants : Frédéric Alexandre, André Garenne, Nicolas Rougier, Thierry Viéville.

The computational models studied in this project have applications that extend far beyond what is possible to experiment yet in human or non-human primate subjects. Real robotics experimentations are also impaired by rather heavy technological constraints; for instance, it is not easy to dismantle a given embedded system in the course of emerging ideas. The only versatile environment in which such complex behaviors can be studied both globally and at the level of details of the available modeling is a virtual environment, as in video games, Such a system can be implemented as “brainy-bot” (a programmed player based on our knowledge of the brain architecture) which goal is to survive in a complete manipulable environment.

In order to attain this rather ambitious objective we both (i) deploy an existing open-source video game middleware in order to be able to shape the survival situation to be studied and (ii) revisit the existing models in order to be able to integrate them as an effective brainy-bot. It consists of a platform associated to a scenario that is the closest possible to a survival situation (foraging, predator-prey relationship, partner approach to reproduction) and in which it is easy to integrate an artificial agent with sensory inputs (visual, touch and smell), emotional and somatosensory cues (hunger, thirst, fear, ..) and motor outputs (movement, gesture, ..) connected to a "brain" whose architecture will correspond to the major anatomical regions involved in the issues of learning and action selection (cortex areas detailed here, basal ganglia, hippocampus, and areas dedicated to sensorimotor processes). The internal game clock can be slowed down enough to be able to run non trivial brainy-bot implementations. This platform [13] has already being used by two students of the team and is now a new deliverable of the KEOpS project.