We extend the study of human-robot interaction into the area of large-scale, multi-user, robotic interactive environments. Using our experimental infrastructure – the interactive space Ada, an exhibit at the Swiss national expo in 2002 that received 553,700 visitors – we show that human movement is predictive of key attitudes towards a space and other humans, and that subjects’ behavior and attitudes are influenced by subtle modifications of environmental parameters. We also found several demographic effects on visitors’ opinions of interactive spaces. These findings enhance our quantitative understanding of collective human behavior in interactive spaces and are a first step towards the construction of active environments that can automatically influence human motion and experience. This knowledge will be important in the design and construction of future interactive environments for enhancing the safety and enjoyment of shared areas for large numbers of people.

We present a biophysically constrained cerebellar model of classical conditioning, implemented using a neuromorphic analog VLSI (aVLSI) chip. Like its biological counterpart, our cerebellar model is able to control adaptive behavior by predicting the precise timing of events. Here we describe the functionality of the chip and present its learning performance, as evaluated in simulated conditioning experiments at the circuit level and in behavioral experiments using a mobile robot. We show that this aVLSI model supports the acquisition and extinction of adaptively timed conditioned responses under real-world conditions with ultra-low power consumption.

Ada is an entertainment exhibit that is able to interact with many people simultaneously, using a language of light and sound. "She " received 553,700 visitors over 5 months during the Swiss Expo.02 in 2002. In this paper we present the broad motivations, design and technologies behind Ada, and a first overview of the outcomes of the exhibit.

Despite immense progress in neuroscience, we remain restricted in our ability to construct autonomous behaving robots that match the competence of even simple animals. The barriers to the realisation of this goal include: the lack of knowledge of system integration issues, engineering limitations and organisational constraints common to many research laboratories. In this paper we describe our approach to addressing these issues by constructing an artificial organism within the framework of the Ada project - a large-scale public exhibit for the Swiss Expo.02 national exhibition.