A Model and Simulation of Early-Stage Vision as a Developmental Sensorimotor Process

Theories of embodied cognition and active vision suggest that perception is constructed through interaction and becomes meaningful because it is grounded in the agent's activity. We developed a model to illustrate and implement these views. Following its intrinsic motivation, the agent autonomously learns to coordinate its motor actions with the information received from its sensory system. Besides illustrating theories of active vision, this model suggests new ways to implement vision and intrinsic motivation in artificial systems. Specifically, we coupled an autonomous sequence learning mechanism with a visual system. To connect vision with sequences, we made the visual system react to movements in the visual field rather than merely transmitting static patterns.