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A team of researchers has found that posture is critical in the early stages of acquiring new knowledge. Using both robots and infants, researchers examined the role bodily position played in the brain's ability to "map" names to objects. They found that consistency of the body's posture and spatial relationship to an object as an object's name was shown and spoken aloud were critical to successfully connecting the name to the object.
The study offers a new approach to studying the way "objects of cognition," such as words or memories of physical objects, are tied to the position of the body. The new insights stem from the field of epigenetic robotics, in which researchers are working to create robots that learn and develop like children, through interaction with their environment.Image credit: University of Plymouth
