Comparison of absolute and relative strategies to encode sensorimotor transformations in tool-use

Abstract

We explore different strategies to overcome the problem of sensorimotor transformation that babies face during development, especially in the case of tool-use. From a developmental perspective, we investigate a model based on absolute coordinate frames of reference, and another one based on relative coordinate frames of reference. In a situation of sensorimotor learning and of adaptation to tool-use, we perform a computer simulation of a 4 degrees of freedom robot. We show that the relative coordinate strategy is the most rapid and robust to re-adapt the neural code.