TBD Tamara Lorenz (UC Psychology & Engineering)

Behavior Modelling of Humans and Robots

In CAP, the Center for Cognition, Action, and Perception at UC, we study human perception, action, and cognition from an ecological perspective. Our core assumption is that there are no mental representations of the world in our brains, and that the brain neither solely controls the body nor merely processes information. Instead, we view the brain–body–environment as a coupled system in which, over time, relevant information emerges—that is, becomes discoverable. Given our own action capabilities, we may perceive this information as action-relevant and experience the scene before us as offering action opportunities. When modeling the resulting human behavior, we therefore assume that all relevant information is available in the environment and can, in principle, be discovered. The models themselves serve as potential explanations of observable behavior, showing how behavior can be grounded in the environment given the laws of physics and our biology/physiology. Interestingly, individual behavior changes when we interact with others due to mutual adaptation of actions, and this same phenomenon can be observed in interactions with active machines, such as robots. To make robots safe and intuitive to interact with—and to better understand the subtle, nudging influence they can have on our behavior—I observe and dynamically model human action and interaction. In my talk, I will introduce our approach to dynamical systems modeling and present examples of my previous work, along with some early-stage ideas for future projects.