Factors influencing the origins of colour categories

Proefschrift voorgelegd voor het behalen van de academische graad van doctor in de wetenschappen, in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 8 maart 2002. Acknowledgements I started as a research assistant in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in autumn 1996. My first interests were into behavioural robotics and robot ecosystems. As a continuation to my " licentiaats " thesis I started building a camera system to extend the sensory perception of the lab's robots (Bel-It was around that time when Luc Steels got interested in the origins of language. His early experiments formed the seed for what is now one of the most important paradigms for exploring linguistic interactions with computer simulations. Luc soon wanted more and had plans to implement a language experiment in the real world, for which I delivered the visual perception (Belpaeme et al., 1998; Belpaeme, 1999). This got me interested in visual features, and my research soon switched to the artificial evolution of visual feature detectors. As the robot research in the lab was simmering, most resources and brain-power were put on the origins of language research. In 1999 Luc had the idea to take colour as theme for one of our courses on artificial intelligence. With the help of Erik Myin speakers from different backgrounds were invited: engineers, philosophers and even an artist came by to give their view on colour. During these lectures it dawned on me that there is more to colour than meets the eye. I there and then decided to delve into the splendid field of colour research and to use Luc's simulation paradigms to study colour categorisation. Two years later, this thesis is the result of my explorations. I am most indebted to my supervisor, Luc Steels, for the opportunities and intellectual freedom he gave me. He provided the ideas and guidance for this work and though his physical presence is every now and then lacking , his influence and inspiration are always felt. for answering my questions, for introducing me to the literature and for their kind advice. My gratitude goes out to all my friends and colleagues of the AI Lab whom I ever had the pleasure of working and socialising with: I would also like to thank all the people who kept my academic activities into perspective, I will not sum up your names here, there's too many of you. You know who you are. Thanks! Of …

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