Development of auditory-evoked reflexes: Visuo-acoustic cues integration in a binocular head

Abstract The goal of this paper is to propose a biologically plausible, functional model of the acquisition of visual, acoustic and multi-modal motor responses. Within this context visual and acoustic spatial cues are considered, fused in a coherent percept and eventually employed to control the orienting behavior of a humanoid robot. The rationale of the approach lies in the possibility to test and empirically prove the correctness of the model through the embodiment and the real interaction of the system with the environment. The model takes into account the fact that (i) acoustic and visual cues are represented with respect to different coordinate frames (head-centric versus retino-centric) and consequently they need to be “aligned” in order to be properly fused, (ii) a teaching signal has to be generated in order to inform the system that the motor performance is not adequate to perform the task (i.e. orient toward the stimulus) and thus adaptation is required, and (iii) vision plays a major role in driving the acquisition of the appropriate map of space but other sources of feedback might be employed as well.