Evolutionary robotics models in the interdisciplinary study of embodied time perception Marieke Rohde and Ezequiel Di Paolo Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics …

This discrepancy (i.e., adaptation in some situations but not in others) suggests that adaptation to sensory delays does not proceed automatically, on the basis of statistical properties of sensory inputs, but is contingent on the performed behaviour and the associated sensorimotor dynamics. Artificial Life and Evolutionary Robotics simulation models are proven tools in the study of non-linear sensorimotor dynamics, which are difficult to understand intuitively. In particular, our earlier work (Di Paoloetal., 2008, New Ideas in Psychology, forthcoming; Rohde, 2008, PhD Thesis, University of Sussex; Rohdeand Di Paolo, 2007, ECAL 2007, p. 193, Springer) argues and demonstrates how Evolutionary Robotics simulation models can contribute to the scientific study of human sensorimotor adaptation. In a combined experimental and evolutionary robotics modelling study, we have tested the (unconfirmed) hypothesis put forward by Cunninghametal. (Cunninghametal., 2001, Psychological Science, 12, p. 532) that adaptation to sensory delays occurs if there is time-pressure on the task (Rohde, 2008, PhD Thesis, University of Sussex; Rohdeand Di Paolo, 2007, ECAL 2007, p. 193, Springer). On the basis of data analysis of both the artificial model agents’and the experimental subjects sensorimotor recordings we revised our hypothesis: We now believe that, apart from time pressure, the task needs to feature a systematic link between present motion and future sensation over a longer time span in order to make the task predictable. This new hypothesis will be tested using a combined Evolutionary Robotics modelling and experimental psychophysics approach proposed and applied in (Rohde, 2008, PhD Thesis, University of Sussex) that aims at formalising and explaining the sensorimotor in variances associated with perceptual experience of time and simultaneity. We argue that the contingent relation between function and underlying mechanisms inherent in Evolutionary Robotics simulations helps to identify general dynamical principles and fundamental sensorimotor…

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