A Lesson from Robotics: Modeling Infants as Autonomous Agents

Although computational models are playing an increasingly important role in developmental psychology, at least one lesson from robotics is still being learned: Modeling epigenetic processes often requires simulating an embodied, autonomous organism. This article first contrasts prevailing models of infant cognition with an agent-based approach. A series of infant studies by Baillargeon (1986; Baillargeon & DeVos, 1991) is described, and an eye-movement model is then used to simulate infants’ visual activity in this study. I conclude by describing three behavioral predictions of the eye-movement model and discussing the implications of this work for infant cognition research.