*Last updated: 9 Apr 2025*
Here at the Belkaid Lab we study human brains using robots and design human-inspired robot brains.
Our team is interested in studying intelligent behavior in humans, animals and machines. More specifically, our goal is to understand the neural and computational underpinnings of intelligent behavior, with a focus on processes related to affect/emotion, decision-making and social interactions. Questions of interest include:
Understanding what gives rise to intelligent behavior is an interdisciplinary enterprise. Research conducted by our team falls within the field of cognitive science, at the intersection between neuroscience and robotics. In this research, computational modeling holds a central place, with the aim of describing cognitive and neural processes in the form of algorithms to mechanistically explain and reproduce human behaviors. In a back-and-forth between neuroscience and robotics, the robot is seen as an embodied agent that can be used to test computational models in realistic conditions and to implement situated, real-time interactions with humans. The brain on the other hand is seen as a computing machine whose complex functioning should be studied holistically at the neuronal, algorithmic, and behavioral levels, and from which we can draw inspiration to design novel intelligent technologies.
Collaborating to achieve a common goal entails making decisions that take our partners into account. Yet, the neurocomputational mechanisms underlying the decision-making dimension of joint action remain understudied. JAVA seeks to address this topic by leveraging an interdisciplinary approach combining human-human joint action experiments with computational modeling, electroencephalography (EEG), and human-robot experiments.
Funding