Researchers at Osaka University's Graduate School of Engineering have created "Child-robot with Biomimetic Body," or CB2 in order to better understand how children learn and develop. CB2 has a soft touchable body and responds like a 1-2 year old in movement and facial expression, giving an eerily accurate childlike impression when observed.
More importantly, from a research point of view, CB2 has sensors that are responsive to touch that will help us to understand how the feedback from touch helps a child learn to recognize the dimensions and abilities of his own body. CB2 also develops social skills by observing facial expression, and sorting them into categories such as "happy" or "sad". Additionally, response to language is tracked in ways far beyond learning to associate a repeated word with a particular object. As CB2 learns, his social and cognitive behavior changes and his movement adapts to incorporate the new knowledge, much as a child would.
Previously, research was necessarily based entirely on observation of children responding to stimuli. Never before has it been possible to observe the effect of touch and other stimulation on building intelligence and self-awareness from the inside out by seeing how the artificial brain, specifically designed to mimic a child's, adapts and changes to its environment.The research team hope to create a more sophisticated robot with the intelligence and responses of a three year old in a few years.
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