Title :
Mental practice and verbal instructions execution: A cognitive robotics study
Author :
Di Nuovo, A.G. ; Marocco, D. ; Cangelosi, Angelo ; De La Cruz, Vivian M. ; Di Nuovo, Santo
Author_Institution :
Plymouth Univ., Plymouth, UK
Abstract :
Understanding the tight relationship that exists between mental imagery and motor activities (i.e. how images in the mind can influence movements and motor skills) has become a topic of interest and is of particular importance in domains in which improving those skills is crucial for obtaining better performance, such as in sports and rehabilitation. In this paper, using an embodied cognition approach and a cognitive robotics platform, we introduce initial results of an ongoing study that explores the impact linguistic stimuli could have in processes of mental imagery practice and subsequent motor execution and performance. Results are presented to show that the robot used, is able to “imagine” or “mentally” recall and accurately execute movements learned in previous training phases, strictly on the basis of the verbal commands issued. Further tests show that data obtained with “imagination” could be used to simulate “mental training” processes such as those that have been employed with human subjects in sports training, in order to enhance precision in the performance of new tasks, through the association of different verbal commands.
Keywords :
cognition; intelligent robots; neural nets; cognitive robotics; embodied cognition approach; mental imagery; mental practice; mental training; motor activities; sports training; verbal commands; verbal instructions execution; Cognition; Humanoid robots; Joints; Robot sensing systems; Training; Trajectory; cognitive robotics; embodied cognition; mental training; motor imagery; recurrent neural network;
Conference_Titel :
Neural Networks (IJCNN), The 2012 International Joint Conference on
Conference_Location :
Brisbane, QLD
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-1488-6
Electronic_ISBN :
2161-4393
DOI :
10.1109/IJCNN.2012.6252751