Speaker: Angelo Cangelosi
Title:Cognitive Robotics: From Babies to Robots and AI
Time: 9:00 AM, October 27, 2025(Monday)
Location:290 Arts and Science Building
Abstract:
This talk introduces Cognitive Robotics, an interdisciplinary field integrating AI, cognitive science, and biology to advance robotic intelligence. This paradigm fosters close collaboration between roboticists, computer scientists, psychologists, and neuroscientists. Using language learning as a central case study, the talk demonstrates this approach. Research in developmental psychology provides the foundation, revealing the critical role of embodiment in cognition and language—a theory known as embodied cognition. These findings directly inform the design of linguistic capabilities and human-robot collaboration in robotics. The research employs Developmental Robotics methods, showcased through experiments with the iCub and Pepper robots. These studies reveal how embodiment biases shape early word acquisition and grammar learning. The same methodology enables robots to learn abstract concepts, such as numbers, through pointing gestures and finger counting. A novel developmental robotics model investigating Theory of Mind and its link to trust is also presented. This work examines both human understanding of robots and a robot's Artificial Theory of Mind for inferring human intentions. Results demonstrate that transparent intentions and explainable robot decisions significantly enhance trust and collaboration. The discussion extends to the implications for embodied AI and companion robots, while also addressing associated philosophical questions, ethical issues in trustworthy AI, and the limitations of current large language models.
Personal Introduction:
Angelo Cangelosi is Professor of Machine Learning and Robotics at the University of Manchester (UK) and co-director and founder of the Manchester Centre for Robotics and AI. He was selected for the award of the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced grant (UKRI funded). His research interests are in cognitive and developmental robotics, neural networks, language grounding, human robot-interaction and trust, and robot companions for health and social care. Overall, he has secured over £40m of research grants as coordinator/PI, including the ERC Advanced eTALK, the UKRI TAS Trust Node and CRADLE Prosperity, the US AFRL project CASPER++, and numerous Horizon and MSCAs grants. Cangelosi has produced more than 300 scientific publications. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journals Interaction Studies and IET Cognitive Computation and Systems, and in 2015 was Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Development. He has chaired numerous international conferences, including ICANN2022 Bristol, and ICDL2021 Beijing. His book “Developmental Robotics: From Babies to Robots” (MIT Press) was published in January 2015, and translated in Chinese and Japanese. His latest book “Cognitive Robotics” (MIT Press), coedited with Minoru Asada, was recently published in 2022.
[Editor:Wanqi Liu]