Perception-Action Cycle Models, Architectures, and Hardware

The perception-action cycle has been described by the eminent neuroscientist JM Fuster as the circular flow of information that takes place between the organism and its environment in the course of a sensory-guided sequence of behaviour towards a goal. Each action in the sequence causes certain changes in the environment that are analyzed bottom-up through the perceptual hierarchy and lead to the processing of further action, top-down through the executive hierarchy, toward motor effectors. These cause new changes that are analyzed and lead to new action, and so on and so forth.

This book will provide a snapshot and a résumé of the current state-of-the-art of the ongoing research avenues concerning the perception-reason-action cycle. The central aims of the volume are to provide an informational resource and a methodology for anyone interested in constructing and developing models, algorithms and systems of autonomous machines empowered with cognitive capabilities.