"There are three major issues to considered in robot design, the team explains. The first is to construct an appropriate control architecture by which the robot can behave coherently. The second is to develop natural ways for the robot to interact with a person. The third is to embed emotional responses and behavior into the robot's computer.
The researchers hope to address all three issues by adopting an approach to behavior-based architecture - using a neural network - that could allow the owner of a robot pet to reconfigure the device to "learn", or evolve new behavior and at the same time ensure that the robot pet functions properly in real time."
http://www.physorg.com/news203939152.html
