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Cited by 52Embodied and Extended CognitionComplex Systems and DynamicsPsychiatry, Mental Health, Neuroscience

Quantifying Morphological Computation

Open access
Zahedi, Keyan, Ay, Nihat·2013·Entropy
DOI 10.3390/e15051887
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Abstract

The field of embodied intelligence emphasises the importance of the morphology and environment with respect to the behaviour of a cognitive system. The contribution of the morphology to the behaviour, commonly known as morphological computation, is well-recognised in this community. We believe that the field would benefit from a formalisation of this concept as we would like to ask how much the morphology and the environment contribute to an embodied agent’s behaviour, or how an embodied agent can maximise the exploitation of its morphology within its environment. In this work we derive two concepts of measuring morphological computation, and we discuss their relation to the Information Bottleneck Method. The first concepts asks how much the world contributes to the overall behaviour and the second concept asks how much the agent’s action contributes to a behaviour. Various measures are derived from the concepts and validated in two experiments that highlight their strengths and weaknesses.

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  • Work in soft robotics and morphological computation demonstrates that bodily structure can play an active computational role, simplifying control and shaping behavior through physical dynamics.

    “By contrast, work in soft robotics and morphological computation demonstrates that bodily structure can play an active computational role, simplifying control and shaping behavior through physical dynamics (Rus and Tolley, 2015; Pfeifer and Bongard, 2006; Zahedi and Ay, 2013).”

    From Toward Enactive Artificial Intelligence (2026) · cites this paper as Zahedi and Ay, 2013

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Cites

  • Information Flows in Causal Networks

    AY, N., & POLANI, D. (2008) · Advances in Complex Systems · doi:10.1142/s0219525908001465 · Cited by 287 · cited 1× · see citing works

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Zahedi, K., & Ay, N.
Affiliations
  • Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (DE)
  • Santa Fe Institute (US)
ORCID
Zahedi, Keyan
Venue
Entropy
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2013-05-21
Volume
15
Issue
5
Pages
1887-1915
ISSN
1099-4300 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3390/e15051887
OpenAlex
W2066826300
Cited by
52
References
1
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 1
FWCI
1.46
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Entropy (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Funders
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Complex Systems and Dynamics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Psychiatry, Mental Health, Neuroscience
Keywords
morphological computation, embodied AI, morphology, environment, agent actions, embodied agents

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