Making fingers and words count in a cognitive robot
Evidence from developmental as well as neuroscientific studies suggest that finger counting activity plays an important role in the acquisition of numerical skills in children. It has been claimed that this skill helps in building motor-based representations of number that continue to influence num...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2014-02-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00013/full |
| _version_ | 1811232798799822848 |
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| author | Vivian Milagros De La Cruz Alessandro eDi Nuovo Alessandro eDi Nuovo Santo eDi Nuovo Santo eDi Nuovo Angelo eCangelosi |
| author_facet | Vivian Milagros De La Cruz Alessandro eDi Nuovo Alessandro eDi Nuovo Santo eDi Nuovo Santo eDi Nuovo Angelo eCangelosi |
| author_sort | Vivian Milagros De La Cruz |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Evidence from developmental as well as neuroscientific studies suggest that finger counting activity plays an important role in the acquisition of numerical skills in children. It has been claimed that this skill helps in building motor-based representations of number that continue to influence number processing well into adulthood, facilitating the emergence of number concepts from sensorimotor experience through a bottom-up process. The act of counting also involves the acquisition and use of a verbal number system of which number words are the basic building blocks. Using a Cognitive Developmental Robotics paradigm we present results of a modeling experiment on whether finger counting and the association of number words (or tags) to fingers, could serve to bootstrap the representation of number in a cognitive robot, enabling it to perform basic numerical operations such as addition. The cognitive architecture of the robot is based on artificial neural networks, which enable the robot to learn both sensorimotor skills (finger counting) and linguistic skills (using number words). The results obtained in our experiments show that learning the number words in sequence along with finger configurations helps the fast building of the initial representation of number in the robot. Number knowledge, is instead, not as efficiently developed when number words are learned out of sequence without finger counting. Furthermore, the internal representations of the finger configurations themselves, developed by the robot as a result of the experiments, sustain the execution of basic arithmetic operations, something consistent with evidence coming from developmental research with children. The model and experiments demonstrate the importance of sensorimotor skill learning in robots for the acquisition of abstract knowledge such as numbers. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T11:10:24Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-bb9b371df6e544cca72dd1be86742a5a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1662-5153 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T11:10:24Z |
| publishDate | 2014-02-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience |
| spelling | doaj.art-bb9b371df6e544cca72dd1be86742a5a2022-12-22T03:35:38ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience1662-51532014-02-01810.3389/fnbeh.2014.0001370684Making fingers and words count in a cognitive robotVivian Milagros De La Cruz0Alessandro eDi Nuovo1Alessandro eDi Nuovo2Santo eDi Nuovo3Santo eDi Nuovo4Angelo eCangelosi5Università degli Studi di MessinaPlymouth UniversityUniversità degli studi di Enna KoreUniversità degli Studi di CataniaIRCCS Oasi Maria SS di TroinaPlymouth UniversityEvidence from developmental as well as neuroscientific studies suggest that finger counting activity plays an important role in the acquisition of numerical skills in children. It has been claimed that this skill helps in building motor-based representations of number that continue to influence number processing well into adulthood, facilitating the emergence of number concepts from sensorimotor experience through a bottom-up process. The act of counting also involves the acquisition and use of a verbal number system of which number words are the basic building blocks. Using a Cognitive Developmental Robotics paradigm we present results of a modeling experiment on whether finger counting and the association of number words (or tags) to fingers, could serve to bootstrap the representation of number in a cognitive robot, enabling it to perform basic numerical operations such as addition. The cognitive architecture of the robot is based on artificial neural networks, which enable the robot to learn both sensorimotor skills (finger counting) and linguistic skills (using number words). The results obtained in our experiments show that learning the number words in sequence along with finger configurations helps the fast building of the initial representation of number in the robot. Number knowledge, is instead, not as efficiently developed when number words are learned out of sequence without finger counting. Furthermore, the internal representations of the finger configurations themselves, developed by the robot as a result of the experiments, sustain the execution of basic arithmetic operations, something consistent with evidence coming from developmental research with children. The model and experiments demonstrate the importance of sensorimotor skill learning in robots for the acquisition of abstract knowledge such as numbers.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00013/fulldevelopmental roboticsEmbodied Cognitionfinger countingnumber cognitionNumber Words |
| spellingShingle | Vivian Milagros De La Cruz Alessandro eDi Nuovo Alessandro eDi Nuovo Santo eDi Nuovo Santo eDi Nuovo Angelo eCangelosi Making fingers and words count in a cognitive robot Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience developmental robotics Embodied Cognition finger counting number cognition Number Words |
| title | Making fingers and words count in a cognitive robot |
| title_full | Making fingers and words count in a cognitive robot |
| title_fullStr | Making fingers and words count in a cognitive robot |
| title_full_unstemmed | Making fingers and words count in a cognitive robot |
| title_short | Making fingers and words count in a cognitive robot |
| title_sort | making fingers and words count in a cognitive robot |
| topic | developmental robotics Embodied Cognition finger counting number cognition Number Words |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00013/full |
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