=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=None
|storemode=property
|title=When Psychology and Technology Converge. The Case of Spatial Cognition
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1100/AbstractInvited2.pdf
|volume=Vol-1100
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/aiia/Miglino13
}}
==When Psychology and Technology Converge. The Case of Spatial Cognition==
<pdf width="1500px">https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1100/AbstractInvited2.pdf</pdf>
<pre>
When Psychology and Technology Converge.
     The Case of Spatial Cognition

                                Orazio Miglino

Natural and Artificial Cognition Lab, Department of Humanities, University of
        Naples Federico II, www.nac.unina.it, orazio.miglino@unina.it




   Abstract. The behaviors of spatial orientation that an organism dis-
   plays result from its capacity for adapting, knowing, and modifying its
   environment; expressed in one word, spatial orientation behaviors result
   from its psychology. These behaviors can be extremely simple (consider,
   for example, obstacle avoidance, tropisms, taxis, or random walks) but
   extremely sophisticated as well: consider for example, intercontinental
   migrations, orienting in tangled labyrinths, reaching unapproachable ar-
   eas. In different species orienting abilities can be innate or the result
   of a long learning period in which teachers can be involved. This is the
   case for many vertebrates. Moreover, an organism can exploit external
   resources that amplify its exploring capacities; it can rely on others help
   and in this case what we observe is a sophisticated collective orienting
   behavior. An organism can use technological devices as well. Human be-
   ings have widely developed these two strategies - namely either exploring
   its own capacities or learning new orienting skills - and thanks to well-
   structured work groups (a crew navigating a boat, for instance) and the
   continuous improving of technological devices (geographical maps, satel-
   lites, compasses, etc.), they have expanded their habitat and can easily
   orient in skies and seas. It also is possible to observe orienting behav-
   iors in an apparently paradoxical condition: exploring a world without
   moving ones body. In the present day a lot of interactions between hu-
   mans and information and communication technologies (mobile phones,
   PCs, networks) are achieved using orienting behaviors. The best exam-
   ple is the World Wide Web: the explorer in this pure-knowledge universe
   navigates while keeping his/her body almost completely still. Spatial
   orientation behaviors are the final and observable outcome of a long
   chain made up by very complex psychobiological states and processes.
   There is no orienting without perception, learning, memory, motivation,
   planning, decision making, problem solving, and, in some cases, social-
   ization. Explaining how an organism orients in space requires study of
   all human and animal cognition dimensions and, for this reason, psy-
   chology, and in more recent years anthropology, ethology, neuroscience
   all consider orientation a very interesting field of study. Bulding-up ar-
   tificial systems (digital agents, simulated and physical robots, etc.) that
   shows the (almost) same behaviors of natural organisms is a powerful
   approach to reach a general theory of (spatial) cognition. In this frame-
   work the artificial systems could be viewed as new synthetic organisms
   to be behavioural compared with biological systems. On the other hand,
this approach could produce more adaptive and efficient systems artifi-
cial systems (such as autonomous mobile robots). I will present different
experiments in Evolutionary Robotics designed to explain spatial cogni-
tion at different level of complexity (from avoiding behaviours to detour
behaviours). Finally, I will try to delineate some general principles to
building-up adaptive mobile agents.

</pre>