Emotional modulation of peripersonal space impacts the way robots interact

Peripersonal space refers to the area around the body that is perceived as secure and reachable. The ability to build such a representation is necessary in both approach and avoidance behaviors. Several studies show that the perception of reachable and comfort areas depends on emotions. In this paper, we describe how we model an appetitive and an aversive pathway based on the role of some brain regions. The obtained emotional states modulate the robot perception of its peripersonal space. This representation is directly used to control the robot behavior. Based on a single-resource multirobot experiment, we show the impact of such an emotional modulation. Aggressive or fearful behaviors emerge from the dynamics of interaction between the simulated robots.