Cited by 70Psychiatry, Mental Health, NeurosciencePhilosophy and Theoretical ScienceSocial Robot Interaction and HRI

A cognitive architecture for robot self-consciousness

Chella, Antonio, Frixione, Marcello, Gaglio, Salvatore·2008·Artificial Intelligence in Medicine

Abstract

Objective One of the major topics towards robot consciousness is to give a robot the capabilities of self-consciousness. We propose that robot self-consciousness is based on higher order perception of the robot, in the sense that first-order robot perception is the immediate perception of the outer world, while higher order perception is the perception of the inner world of the robot.Methods and material We refer to a robot cognitive architecture that has been developed during almost 10 years at the RoboticsLab of the University of Palermo. The architecture is organized in three computational areas. The subconceptual area is concerned with the low level processing of perceptual data coming from the sensors. In the linguistic area, representation and processing are based on a logic formalism. In the conceptual area, the data coming from the subconceptual area are organized in conceptual categories.Results To model higher order perceptions in self-reflective agents, we introduce the notion of second-order points in conceptual space. Each point in this space corresponds to a self-reflective agent, i.e., the robot itself, persons, and other robots with introspective capabilities.Conclusions The described model of robot self-consciousness, although effective, highlights open problems from the point of view of the computational requirements of the current state-of-art computer systems. Some future works that lets the robot to summarize its own past experiences should be investigated.

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Crossref · 10.1016/j.artmed.2008.07.003

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  • The AST has strong similarities to machine consciousness approaches in which a system contains representations of the self, the environment, and higher-order recursive representations of how the self relates to the environment.

    “The AST also has strong similarities to approaches in machine consciousness (e.g., Chella et al., 2008) in which a system can contain representations of the self, the environment, and higher order, recursive representations of how the self relates to the environment.”

    From The Attention Schema Theory: A Foundation for Engineering Artificial Consciousness (2017) · cites this paper as Chella et al., 2008

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Authors
Chella, A., Frixione, M., & Gaglio, S.
Affiliations
  • University of Palermo (IT)
  • University of Salerno (IT)
Corresponding author
Chella, Antonio
Venue
Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2008-10
Volume
44
Issue
2
Pages
147-154
ISSN
0933-3657 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2040673088
Cited by
70
References
23
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 2
FWCI
5.82
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Nova Science Publishers (Nova Science Publishers, Inc.) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Psychiatry, Mental Health, Neuroscience
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
Keywords
robot consciousness, cognitive architecture, self-reflection, conceptual space, conceptual categories, sensor data processing, self-awareness
MeSH terms
Artificial Intelligence, Consciousness, Robotics

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