Projects

Our research is divided into four distinctive research units. Below is a short summary of each of these research units and a list with the research projects in each of the research units. See Structure for a motivation and more detailed explanation of this structure.

Research Unit 1: Synthesizing intelligent behavior

We build intelligent behavior to understand it. In these projects researchers from technical and non-technical disciplines cooperate to understand biological intelligence, as well as to build intelligent artifacts (e.g. robots) to replicate and research intelligence in general. In this research unit we work to understand and synthesize three intelligent behaviors:

Behavior 1 – Individual intelligence: Escaping from an escape room

  • Object-level scene descriptions and attention in visual search
  • Capabilities and consequences of recursive, hierarchical information processing in visual systems
  • Mouse Lock Box
  • Intelligent Kinematic Problem Solving

Behavior 2 – Social intelligence: Learning in social interaction

  • From understanding learners’ adaptive motivation and emotion to designing social learning companions
  • Knowledge-augmented face perception
  • Multimodal Interaction and Communication
  • Anticipation, Prediction and Behavioral Reliability in Social Interactions

Behavior 3 – Collective intelligence: Cooperative shepherding

  • Dynamical Collective Adaptation & Learning
  • Learning of intelligent swarm behavior
Research Unit 2: Principles of intelligence

What are the principles of intelligence, shared by all forms of intelligence, no matter whether

artificial or biological, whether robot, computer program, human, or animal? In this research unit we aim to answer this question.

  • Architectural design principles for intelligence: Modularity vs Integration

Research Unit 3: Advancing synthetic components of intelligence

The synthesis of intelligent behavior in the Research Unit 1 (Synthesizing intelligent behavior) is limited by available synthetic methods. In this research unit, we ensure that the synthetic tools available to the project “grow” with our understanding of intelligence. We must advance the state of the art in the synthetic sciences and provide this to Research Unit 1.

  • Efficient Multi-Task Deep Learning
  • Dexterous and Sensorized Soft Robotic Hands

Cross-cutting Research Unit 4: Sociological and philosophical framing

The study and synthesis of intelligence raises important ethical and methodological questions. This research unit’s goal is to steer a process of convergence within the consortium regarding conceptual, methodological, and ethical issues.

  • Methodology of the synthetic approach
  • Ethics of Intelligence
  • Concept of Intelligence