POSTMODULAR SYSTEMS - ARCHITECTURAL PRINCIPLES FOR COGNITIVE ROBOTICS

Modular-functional decomposition is a fundamental tenet of computer sc ience. Cognitive robotics, with strong roots in cognitive science and biology, replaces modular-functional decomposition with a more opportu nistic approach. Nonetheless, we can extract heuristics with both anal ytic and synthetic power: architectural principles for postmodular sys tems. This paper describes three postmodular principles: imagination, shared grounding, and incremental adaptation. It briefly discusses exa mples of each drawn from existing systems. The paper concludes with an illustration of these three principles used in concert to build a sys tem that progresses first to hand-eye coordination, then to planned co mplex reaching, and finally to shared attention.