Morphological Computation – Connecting Brain, Body, and Environment

Traditionally, in robotics, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience, there has been a focus on the study of the control or the neural system itself. Recently there has been an increasing interest in the notion of embodiment not only in robotics and artificial intelligence, but also in neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. In this paper, we introduce the notion of morphological computation and demonstrate how it can be exploited on the one hand for designing intelligent, adaptive robotic systems, and on the other for understanding natural systems. While embodiment has often been used in its trivial meaning, i.e. “intelligence requires a body”, the concept has deeper and more important implications, concerned with the relation between physical and information (neural, control) processes. Morphological computation is about connecting body, brain and environment. A number of case studies are presented to illustrate the concept. We conclude with some speculations about potential lessons for neuroscience and robotics, in particular for building brain-like intelligence, and we present a theoretical scheme that can be used to embed the diverse case studies.