Patricia Shaw
Papers
17
Total Citations
214
H-Index
7
About
Patricia Shaw is a pioneering researcher in developmental and cognitive robotics, whose work sits at the fascinating intersection of developmental psychology, neuroscience, and autonomous systems. Her research focuses on biologically inspired learning architectures that enable robots to acquire sensorimotor skills through processes mirroring human infant development, with particular emphasis on gaze control, reaching, and object perception. Shaw's most influential contribution, "A Psychology Based Approach for Longitudinal Development in Cognitive Robotics" (2014, 60 citations), established a compelling framework for autonomous learning without prior task knowledge — a fundamental challenge in robotics. Her complementary work on eye-head gaze coordination and visually guided reaching on humanoid platforms, particularly the iCub robot, has garnered substantial recognition, accumulating over 130 citations across her core publications. A distinctive hallmark of Shaw's research is her commitment to biological plausibility; she consistently draws on infant developmental milestones, topographic neural representations, and maturational constraints to inform her architectures. Her later investigations into multimodal object perception and hierarchical schema development through play behavior demonstrate an evolving research program that bridges early sensorimotor learning with higher-order cognition. Shaw's work offers students and researchers a rigorous yet accessible model for understanding how embodied intelligence can emerge organically through environmental interaction.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 5Overlapping Structures in Sensory-Motor Mappings13 citations · 2014
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- 7Perception of Localized Features During Robotic Sensorimotor Development9 citations · 2017
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- 10Babybot challenge: Motor skills6 citations · 2015