Objective Recent models from cognitive robotics research have recently begun to appreciate the entwined relationship between language and action, and have proposed to ground robots’ language understanding in sensorimotor representations. These models, however, focused mainly on the one-way relation between language and action, neglecting its bi-directional character. Hence, the primary aim of this research is to provide an experimental and computational framework for explaining how the processes of language interact with other processes such as motor control. We intend to tackle this issue from the developmental robotics perspective. This highly interdisciplinary field of robotics benefits greatly from the direct collaboration with child psychologists and the modeling of child development phenomena in robots. One classic approach to studying child development is to look at the errors that children sometimes commit. Young children, for example, sometimes make a serious attempt to perform impossible actions on miniature objects. We suggest that these errors may result from the onsets of language and propose to test it empirically: does a child with a larger vocabulary and/or more advanced grammatical skills perform more errors than a less advanced child? The hypotheses derived from the study will be replicated in experiments with the developmental robotics platform iCub to demonstrate the impact of such an embodied cognitive approach in the design of integrated action and language capabilities in robots. This research will contribute to the knowledge of cross-talk between language and motor structures and suggest a possible developmental mechanism, and endow a robot with the ability to comprehend sentences on object interaction. The fellowship will also provide the researcher with an opportunity to further develop multidisciplinary skills in child psychology and developmental robotics methods, and transferable skills for R&D in academia and service robotics industry. Fields of science engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringroboticscognitive robotsengineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringroboticsautonomous robotssocial sciencespsychology Programme(s) FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) Topic(s) FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF - Marie-Curie Action: "Intra-European fellowships for career development" Call for proposal FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF) Coordinator UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH EU contribution € 221 606,40 Address DRAKE CIRCUS PL4 8AA Plymouth United Kingdom See on map Region South West (England) Devon Plymouth Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Administrative Contact John Martin (Dr.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Total cost No data