Body In Mind
Long thought the province of the abstract, cognition may actually evolve as physical experiences and actions ignite mental life
By Bruce Bower
With gargantuan ears, gleaming brown eyes, a fuzzy white muzzle and a squat, furry body, Leonardo looks like a magical creature from a Harry Potter book. He’s actually a robot powered by an innovative set of silicon innards.
Like a typical 6-year-old child, but unlike standard robots that come preprogrammed with inflexible rules for thinking, Leonardo adopts the perspectives of people he meets and then acts on that knowledge. Leonardo’s creators, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Personal Robots Group and special effects aces at the Stan Winston Studio in Van Nuys, Calif., watch their inquisitive invention make social strides with a kind of parental pride.
Consider this humanlike attainment. Leo, as he’s called for short, uses sensors to watch MIT researcher Matt Berlin stash cookies in one of two boxes with hinged, open covers. After Berlin leaves the room, another experimenter enters and creeps over to the boxes, a hood obscuring his face. The mysterious intruder moves the cookies from one box to the other and closes both containers before skulking out. Only Leo can unlock the boxes, by pressing buttons on a panel placed in front of him.