Conceptual spaces and language games for an artificial fingertip

Conceptual spaces are a representational framework in which concepts are defined by a set of attributes and an associated distance metric. Concepts are thus represented as convex regions within a conceptual space, which itself is made up of several feature dimensions. In this paper we describe a possible tactile conceptual space for an artificial fingertip. We then show how this space can be used in a language game, in which a population of autonomous agents co-evolves a set of shared tactile concepts. In particular, we have analysed a variety of textures and chosen two features to represent them. Given these features, we run simulations where agents use this conceptual space together with a language model, in order to communicate about a set of textures. Using a learning process to update their concepts based on the assertions of others, these agents can coordinate their descriptions of the textures they observe.