- H. Holzapfel, A. Waibel. 2006. Providing Cognitive Functions for Interactive Learning with Speech and Multimodal Processing. Abstract: Cognitive systems can roughly be categorized into systems that try to imitate human cognition and systems that try to imitate cognition on a functional basis, to compare which functionality human cognition can achieve. Both approaches are driven forward with usually different research approaches. In this paper we address influences to our work by both approaches and especially look for hints that can help us further in designing a cognitive system, while focussing on the development of an interactive learning component that uses speech and multimodal information. An important part of cognition is the ability to acquire new knowledge though learning mechanisms, which enhances an artificial system with the ability to develop or adapt to a new environment. In contrast to most learning algorithms applied in machine learning today, which mainly work with offline learning on training samples, learning in a cognitive system needs to be performed autonomously and through interaction with the environment or with other agents/humans. We present ongoing work in this area of interactive learning with first experiments on having the robot learn words, objects and their semantic interpretation, and argue for a modality independent approach to knowledge acquisition through dialog.
