Popular Science recently profiled this fascinating new research by Peter Ford Dominey and his colleagues at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, where they have taught an iCub toddler-bot to learn speech patterns, and think before it speaks and reacts to a command. PopSci writes, “Our brains process spoken words in real time and anticipate what’s next, which allows us to hold meaningful conversations (mostly) without awkward pauses to stop and think. This is possible because of connections between the frontal cortex and a brain region called the striatum. Dominey and colleagues built an artificial version–a neural network with a series of recurring loops that can transmit information. They incorporated this into an iCub open-source robot, which is designed to look like a 3-year-old human.” Check out the video below, and to learn more be sure to visit PopSci.com.
