Apparent Volitional Behavior Selection Based on Memory Predictions

Abstract

Volitional movement is a hallmark for human behavior. How such well-intended concatenation of behaviors is achieved remains, however, elusive. In the present study, we hypothesized that visual memory of past motion trajectories may be used for selecting future behavior. Based on our memory prediction hypothesis, we designed motor planning experiments that generate new path when given a fixed goal by using only visual memories of past motor trajectories. We conducted simulation experiments and applied the motion planning algorithm for a humanoid robot. The results of our studies suggest that new motor trajectory for a fixed goal can be generated on learned visual memories of past behaviors.