REMCO TUKKER

Affiliation (beside Almende):

Radboud University Nijmegen, Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour: Cognitive Neuroscience

Research project:

Implementing regulative control within the Replicator project

"My internship at Almende should result in a thesis and -if it is good enough- my masters degree. I will implement a theory from neuroscience in the Replicator robot. The theory is put forward by E. Koechlin and proposes a general layout of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which is the part of our brain that can be found right above our eyes.

Koechlin states that the posterior parts of the PFC are involved with simple, automated reactions (like eating or walking), while the more anterior parts can block those automated reactions, depending on the current context (stop walking when there's a traffic light).

Hopefully, implementing this will benefit both Replicator and the theory: Koechlins ideas are put to the test in an embodied agent and the robots can use the context and ignore distractors to show more intelligent behavior."

Biography:

Remco Tukker did his Bachelor in Physics and Astronomy at the Radboud University in Nijmegen. He then continued with the research master Cognitive Neuroscience (brain networks & neuronal communication track), which is organized in part by the Donders Institute.

Remco is interested in research about language, especially language evolution (in reality or in artificial agents). He tries to spend his time on trains in a useful way by learning Russian.