We present a neural model that can perform eye movements to a particular side of an object regardless of the position and orienta(cid:173) tion of the object in space, a generalization of a task which has been recently used by Olson and Gettner [4] to investigate the neu(cid:173) ral structure of object-centered representations. Our model uses an intermediate representation in which units have oculocentric recep(cid:173) tive fields- just like collicular neurons- whose gain is modulated by the side of the object to which the movement is directed, as well as the orientation of the object. We show that these gain modulations are consistent with Olson and Gettner's single cell recordings in the supplementary eye field. This demonstrates that it is possible to perform an object-centered task without a representation involv(cid:173) ing an object-centered map, viz., without neurons whose receptive fields are defined in object-centered coordinates. We also show that the same approach can account for object-centered neglect, a situ(cid:173) ation in which patients with a right parietal lesion neglect the left side of objects regardless of the orientation of the objects.

The definition of symbolic descriptions that consistently represent relevant geometrical aspects in manipulation tasks is a challenging problem that has received little attention in the robotic community. This definition is usually done from an observer perspective of a finite set of object relations and orientations that only satisfy geometrical constraints to execute experiments in laboratory conditions. This restricts the possible changes with manipulation actions in the object configuration space to those compatible with that particular external reference definitions, which greatly limits the spectrum of possible manipulations. To tackle these limitations we propose an object-centered representation that permits characterizing a much wider set of possible changes in configuration spaces than the traditional observer perspective counterpart. Based on this representation, we define universal planning operators for picking and placing actions that permits generating plans with geometric and force consistency in manipulation tasks. This object-centered description is directly obtained from the poses and bounding boxes of objects using a novel learning mechanisms that permits generating signal-symbols relations without the need of handcrafting these relations for each particular scenario.

We present a neural model that can perform eye movements to a particular side of an object regardless of the position and orientation of the object in space, a generalization of a task which has been recently used by Olson and Gettner [4] to investigate the neural structure of object-centered representations. Our model uses an intermediate representation in which units have oculocentric receptive fields-just like collicular neurons-whose gain is modulated by the side of the object to which the movement is directed, as well as the orientation of the object. We show that these gain modulations are consistent with Olson and Gettner's single cell recordings in the supplementary eye field. This demonstrates that it is possible to perform an object-centered task without a representation involving an object-centered map, viz., without neurons whose receptive fields are defined in object-centered coordinates. We also show that the same approach can account for object-centered neglect, a situation in which patients with a right parietal lesion neglect the left side of objects regardless of the orientation of the objects. Several authors have argued that tasks such as object recognition [3] and manipulation [4] are easier to perform if the object is represented in object-centered coordinates, a representation in which the subparts of the object are encoded with respect to a frame of reference centered on the object. Compelling evidence for the existence of such representations in the cortex comes from experiments on hemineglect-a neurological syndrome resulting from unilateral lesions of the parietal cortex such that a right lesion, for example, leads patients to ignore stimuli located on the left side of their egocentric space. Recently, Driver et al. (1994) showed that the deficit can also be object-centered.

We present a neural model that can perform eye movements to a particular side of an object regardless of the position and orientation of the object in space, a generalization of a task which has been recently used by Olson and Gettner [4] to investigate the neural structure of object-centered representations. Our model uses an intermediate representation in which units have oculocentric receptive fields-just like collicular neurons-whose gain is modulated by the side of the object to which the movement is directed, as well as the orientation of the object. We show that these gain modulations are consistent with Olson and Gettner's single cell recordings in the supplementary eye field. This demonstrates that it is possible to perform an object-centered task without a representation involving an object-centered map, viz., without neurons whose receptive fields are defined in object-centered coordinates. We also show that the same approach can account for object-centered neglect, a situation in which patients with a right parietal lesion neglect the left side of objects regardless of the orientation of the objects. Several authors have argued that tasks such as object recognition [3] and manipulation [4] are easier to perform if the object is represented in object-centered coordinates, a representation in which the subparts of the object are encoded with respect to a frame of reference centered on the object. Compelling evidence for the existence of such representations in the cortex comes from experiments on hemineglect-a neurological syndrome resulting from unilateral lesions of the parietal cortex such that a right lesion, for example, leads patients to ignore stimuli located on the left side of their egocentric space. Recently, Driver et al. (1994) showed that the deficit can also be object-centered.

We present a neural model that can perform eye movements to a particular side of an object regardless of the position and orientation ofthe object in space, a generalization of a task which has been recently used by Olson and Gettner [4] to investigate the neural structureof object-centered representations. Our model uses an intermediate representation in which units have oculocentric receptive fields-just like collicular neurons-whose gain is modulated by the side of the object to which the movement is directed, as well as the orientation of the object. We show that these gain modulations are consistent with Olson and Gettner's single cell recordings in the supplementary eye field. This demonstrates that it is possible to perform an object-centered task without a representation involving anobject-centered map, viz., without neurons whose receptive fields are defined in object-centered coordinates. We also show that the same approach can account for object-centered neglect, a situation inwhich patients with a right parietal lesion neglect the left side of objects regardless of the orientation of the objects. Several authors have argued that tasks such as object recognition [3] and manipulation [4]are easier to perform if the object is represented in object-centered coordinates, arepresentation in which the subparts of the object are encoded with respect to a frame of reference centered on the object. Compelling evidence for the existence of such representations in the cortex comes from experiments on hemineglect-a neurological syndrome resulting from unilateral lesions of the parietal cortex such that a right lesion, for example, leads patients to ignore stimuli located on the left side of their egocentric space. Recently, Driver et al. (1994) showed that the deficit can also be object-centered.