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Creating Brain-Like Intelligence pp 66–83Cite as

Morphological Computation – Connecting Brain, Body, and Environment

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 5436))

Abstract

Traditionally, in robotics, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience, there has been a focus on the study of the control or the neural system itself. Recently there has been an increasing interest in the notion of embodiment not only in robotics and artificial intelligence, but also in neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. In this paper, we introduce the notion of morphological computation and demonstrate how it can be exploited on the one hand for designing intelligent, adaptive robotic systems, and on the other for understanding natural systems. While embodiment has often been used in its trivial meaning, i.e. “intelligence requires a body”, the concept has deeper and more important implications, concerned with the relation between physical and information (neural, control) processes. Morphological computation is about connecting body, brain and environment. A number of case studies are presented to illustrate the concept. We conclude with some speculations about potential lessons for neuroscience and robotics, in particular for building brain-like intelligence, and we present a theoretical scheme that can be used to embed the diverse case studies.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Informatics, University of Zurich, Andreasstrasse 15, CH-8050, Zurich, Switzerland

    Rolf Pfeifer

  2. Humanoid Robotics Group, CSAIL, MIT, 32 Vassar St. Room 32-380, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

    Gabriel Gómez

Authors
  1. Rolf Pfeifer
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  2. Gabriel Gómez
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH, 63073 Offenbach/Main, Germany

    Bernhard Sendhoff

  2. Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH, Carl-Legien-Strasse 30, 63073, Offenbach/Main, Germany

    Edgar Körner

  3. Dept. of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, IN 47405, Bloomington, USA

    Olaf Sporns

  4. Faculty of Technology, Neuroinformatics Group, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstr. 25, 33615, Bielefeld, Germany

    Helge Ritter

  5. Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Neural Computation Unit,, 12-22 Suzaki, Uruma, 904-2234, Okinawa, Japan

    Kenji Doya

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Pfeifer, R., Gómez, G. (2009). Morphological Computation – Connecting Brain, Body, and Environment. In: Sendhoff, B., Körner, E., Sporns, O., Ritter, H., Doya, K. (eds) Creating Brain-Like Intelligence. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5436. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00616-6_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00616-6_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-00615-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-00616-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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