Social Constraints on Animate Vision

In 1991, Ballard [2] described the implications of having a visual system that could actively position the camera in response to physical stimuli. In humanoid robotic systems, or in any animate vision system that interacts with people, social dynamics provide additional levels of constraint and provide additional opportunities for processing economy. In this paper, we describe an integrated visual-motor system that has been implemented on a humanoid robot to negotiate the robot’s physical constraints, the perceptual needs of the robot’s behavioral and motivational systems, and the social implications of motor acts.