Emergence of an Internal Model in Evolving Robots Subjected to Sensory Deprivation

In this study we show how simulated robots evolved to display a navigation skills can spontaneously develop an internal model and rely on it to complete their task when sensory stimulation is temporarily unavailable. The analysis of some of the best evolved agents indicates that their internal model operates by anticipating functional properties of the next sensory state rather than the exact state that sensors would have assumed. The characteristics of the states that are anticipated and of the sensory-motor rules that determine how the agents react to the experienced states, however, ensure that the agents produce very similar behaviour during normal and blind phases in which sensory stimulation is available or is self-generated by the agent itself, respectively. The characteristics of the agents’ internal models also ensure an effective transition during the phases in which agents’ internal dynamics is decoupled and re-coupled with the sensory-motor flow.