Abstract

What do the first concepts look like? I propose that the earliest concepts learned by infants are abstractions of activities. The semantics of these concepts are predictive---a good abstraction is one that will help the infant predict reward. This idea has been implemented in several programs, in particular, as fluents in the Babysimulator and preimages in Coelho and Grupen 's robotics work. Additional examples and a longer version of this paper can be found at http://eksl-www.cs.umass.edu /research/conceptual-systems/index.html

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