Robot Model Shows Bodily Posture May Affect Memory & Learning

31st March, 2015

3 April 2015, News of the Week, Newsletter, PT

[Source: Science Daily]
robotmodel
An Indiana University cognitive scientist and collaborators have found that posture is critical in the early stages of acquiring new knowledge.

The study, conducted by Linda Smith, a professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, in collaboration with a roboticist from England and a developmental psychologist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, offers a new approach to studying the way “objects of cognition,” such as words or memories of physical objects, are tied to the position of the body.
“This study shows that the body plays a role in early object name learning, and how toddlers use the body’s position in space to connect ideas,” Smith said. “The creation of a robot model for infant learning has far-reaching implications for how the brains of young people work.”
The research, “Posture Affects How Robots and Infants Map Words to Objects,” was published in PLOS ONE, an open-access, peer-reviewed online journal.
Using both robots and infants, researchers examined the role bodily position played in the brain’s ability to “map” names to objects. They found that consistency of the body’s posture and spatial relationship to an object as an object’s name was shown and spoken aloud were critical to successfully connecting the name to the object.
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