Pierre-Yves Oudeyer

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 particu