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Tag: embodiment

Split attention is a ‘feature’

Split attention is a ‘feature’

“neuroscientists have determined that humans lose focus on whatever task they’re participating in four times a second in order to take stock of their environment. Since a similar study with macaques (short-tailed monkeys found in regions of Asia and Africa) achieved the same result, researchers believe that this shift in focus is an evolutionary tool primates use to react to an ever-shifting environment and avoid threats from predators. On one level, this is an excellent example of embodied cognition in…

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Evolutionary robots – Future of embodied AI?

Evolutionary robots – Future of embodied AI?

An article in Nature Machine Intelligence reports on R&D efforts employing evolutionary approaches to getting robots that are better adapted to their environments. We propose ‘multi-level evolution’, a bottom-up automatic process that designs robots across multiple levels and niches them to tasks and environmental conditions. Multi-level evolution concurrently explores constituent molecular and material building blocks, as well as their possible assemblies into specialized morphological and sensorimotor configurations. Multi-level evolution provides a route to fully harness a recent explosion in available…

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Can we understand other minds? Novels and stories say: no

Can we understand other minds? Novels and stories say: no

by Kanta Dihal This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons. Cassandra woke up to the rays of the sun streaming through the slats on her blinds, cascading over her naked chest. She stretched, her breasts lifting with her arms as she greeted the sun. She rolled out of bed and put on a shirt, her nipples prominently showing through the thin fabric. She breasted boobily to the stairs, and titted downwards. This particular…

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Seismic communication: Elephants communicate through their feet

Seismic communication: Elephants communicate through their feet

During our recent meeting to discuss animal intelligence, Eve mentioned elephants communicating over large distances by transmitting and receiving low-frequency waves through their skeletons and feet. This was in the context of my question, “Is physical embodiment necessary to higher cognition?” This article and video from KQED show and explain the phenomenon.