Complex manipulation tasks can contain various execution branches of primitive skills in sequence or parallel under different scenarios. Manual specifications such branching conditions and associated skill parameters are not only error-prone due to corner cases, but also quickly untraceable given a large number objects skills. On the other hand, learning from demonstration has increasingly show...

In robotic manipulation tasks, perception traditionally precedes the act of manipulation, after which the two are typically interleaved. Perception thus enables efficient and effective manipulation. This paper explores the idea that manipulation enables efficient and effective perception, which in turn improves performance on the overall robotic manipulation task. We study this idea in cluttere...

Apraxic patients are known for deficits in producing and comprehending skilled movements. Two experiments tested their implicit and explicit knowledge about manipulable objects in order to examine whether such deficits accompany impairment in the conceptual representation of manipulation features. An eyetracking method was used to test implicit knowledge (Experiment 1): participants viewed a vi...

In this paper, we present a paradigm for allowing subjects to configure a user interface for multi-robot manipulation tasks. Multi-robot manipulation tasks can be complicated, due to the need for tight temporal coupling between the robots. However, this is an ideal scenario for human-agent-robot teams, since performing all of the manipulation aspects of the task autonomously is not feasible wit...

Working memory (WM) impairment is a core feature of schizophrenia (SZ), but the integrity of the various components of WM is unclear. After encoding, mental representations must be maintained in WM during the delay period. In addition to maintenance, manipulation of internal representation can occur in WM. It has been argued that manipulation of items in WM is more impaired than simple maintena...

Working memory (WM) is the ability to keep a limited amount of information "on line" for immediate use during short intervals. Verbal WM has been hypothesized to consist of neuroanatomically segregated components, i.e., maintenance (storage, rehearsal, and matching) and manipulation (reordering or updating), corresponding to ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Previous imaging stu...

In this paper we present an approach to event detection during a dextrous manipulation task. The approach utilizes a combination of tactile sensors as well as contextual information. The manipulation task is decomposed into distinct phases, each of which is associated with a limited number of feasible events such as making or breaking contact, slipping, etc. A set of context-based and sensor-ba...