{"pk":32729,"title":"Optimal Control Methods for Simulating the Perception of Causality in Young Infants","subtitle":null,"abstract":"There is a growing debate among developmental theorists concerning the perception of causality in young infants. Some theorists advocate a top-down view, e.g., that infants reason about causal events on the basis of intuitive physical principles. Others argue instead for a bottom-up view of infant causal knowledge, in which causal perception emerges from a simple set of associative learning rules. In order to test the limits of the bottom-up view, we propose an optimal control model (OCM) of infant causal perception. OCM is trained to find an optimal pattern of eye movements for maintaining sight of a target object. We first present a series of simulations which illustrate OCM's ability to anticipate the outcome of novel, occluded causal events, and then compare OCM's performance with that of 9-month-old infants. The implications for developmental theory and research are discussed.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[],"section":"Long Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0m92g6bq","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Matthew","middle_name":"","last_name":"Schlesinger","name_suffix":"","institution":"Department of Computer Science; University of Massachusetts","department":""},{"first_name":"Andrew","middle_name":"","last_name":"Barto","name_suffix":"","institution":"Department of Computer Science; University of Massachusetts","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"1999-01-01T13:00:00-05:00","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/32729/galley/23791/download/"}]}