Since january 2008, I am a research scientist in INRIA Bordeaux - Sud-Ouest, heading the FLOWERS team, in developmental and social robotics. Before that, I have been a permanent researcher in Sony Computer Science Lab in Paris for 8 years (2000-2007). I studied computer science in Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, and obtained my PhD in artificial intelligence from University Paris VI. I am interested in the mechanisms that allow humans and robots to develop perceptual, motivational, behavioral and social capabilities to become capable of sharing cultural representations and of natural embodied interaction.

 

My recent work in developmental and social robotics focuses on sensorimotor development: how can we build robots that can learn a variety of novel reusable skills in initially unknown environments, either by themselves or through interaction with social peers?  In this research, concepts from developmental psychology are imported, formalized and implemented in robots. In particular, I am developing systems capable of intrinsically motivated exploration and learning, aka artificial curiosity, as well as biologically inspired methods of human-robot interaction.

 

In previous years, I have also used robots to study how new linguistic conventions can be established in a society of individuals, as well as the mechanisms of language acquisition. There is a double objective: 1) contributing to the understanding of the acquisition and evolution of language(s) (see my book), 2) developing new technological approaches for building intelligent sociable robots.

 

 

 

 

Selected publications on:

Developmental robotics, intrinsic motivation, and artificial curiosity:

Oudeyer P-Y, Kaplan , F. and Hafner, V. (2007) Intrinsic Motivation Systems for Autonomous Mental Development, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 11(2), pp. 265--286. DOI: 10.1109/TEVC.2006.890271. (html)

Self-organization, complex-systems and the origins of speech:

Oudeyer, P-Y. (2006) Self-Organization in the Evolution of Speech, Studies in the Evolution of Language, Oxford University Press. (Translation by James R. Hurford)

Oudeyer, P-Y. (2005) The Self-Organization of Speech Sounds, Journal of Theoretical Biology,  233(3), pp. 435--449. (html)  

The origins of combinatoriality and phonotactics in speech:

Oudeyer, P-Y. (2005) The self-organization of combinatoriality and phonotactics in vocalization systems, Connection Science, 17(3-4), pp. 325--341  

Language evolution conceptualized as a cultural Darwinian process:

Oudeyer, P-Y. and Kaplan, F. (2007) Language Evolution as a Darwinian Process: Computational Studies, Cognitive Processing, 8(1), pp. 21--35. DOI: 10.1007/s10339-006-0158-3

Language acquisition, cognitive development and learnability:

Kaplan, F., Oudeyer, P-Y., Bergen B. (2008) Computational Models in the Debate over Language Learnability, Infant and Child Development, 17(1), pp. 55--80.

Oudeyer, P-Y (2005) How phonological structures can be culturally selected for learnability, Adaptive Behavior, 13(4), pp. 269--280.

Oudeyer P-Y., Kaplan F. (2006) Discovering Communication, Connection Science, 18(2), pp. 189--206.

Emotional speech synthesis and recognition:

Oudeyer P-Y. (2003) The production and recognition of emotions in speech: features and algorithms, International Journal in Human-Computer Studies, 59(1-2), pp. 157--183, special issue on Affective Computing. 

Robot behavioral shaping:

Kaplan, F., Oudeyer, P-Y., Kubinyi, E. and Miklosi, A. (2002) Robotic clicker training. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 38(3-4), pp. 197--206.

  more papers ...

 

 

Call for Papers:
Together with Manuel Lopes, I am guest editor of a special issue on active learning and intrinsically motivated exploration in robots for the IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development journal.

 

I am editor of the IEEE CIS Newsletter on Autonomous Mental Development. The latest issue is available here and includes a call for dialog by Angelo Cangelosi on the question "The symbol grounding problem has been solved: or maybe not?"

 

 

I am program co-chair of the 9th International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems, which will take place in Venice, Italy.