From Physorg
UM researchers are studying child-mother interactions to design robots with social skills
October 28, 2010

To help unravel the mysteries of human cognitive development and reach new the frontiers in robotics, University of Miami (UM) developmental psychologists and computer scientists from the University of California in San Diego (UC San Diego) are studying infant-mother interactions and working to implement their findings in a baby robot capable of learning social skills.

 
The first phase of the project was studying face-to-face interactions between mother and child, to learn how predictable early communication is, and to understand what babies need to act intentionally. The findings are published in the current issue of the journal Neural Networks in a study titled "Applying machine learning to infant interaction: The development is in the details."
The scientists examined 13 mothers and babies between 1 and 6 months of age, while they played during five minute intervals weekly. There were approximately 14 sessions per dyad. The laboratory sessions were videotaped and the researchers applied an interdisciplinary approach to understanding their behavior.

The researchers found that in the first six months of life, babies develop turn- taking skills, the first step to more complex human interactions. According to the study, babies and mothers find a pattern in their play, and that pattern becomes more stable and predictable with age,explains Daniel Messinger, associate professor of Psychology in the UM College of Arts and Sciences and principal investigator of the study.


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