I present a new approach to evolutionary search called novelty search, wherein only behavioral novelty is rewarded, thereby abstracting evolution as a search for novel forms. This new approach contrasts with the traditional approach of rewarding progress towards the objective through an objective function. Although they are designed to light a path to the objective, objective functions can instead deceive search into converging to dead ends called local optima. As a significant problem in evolutionary computation, deception has inspired many techniques designed to mitigate it. However, nearly all such methods are still ultimately susceptible to deceptive local optima because they still measure progress with respect to the objective, which this dissertation will show is often a broken compass. Furthermore, although novelty search completely abandons the objective, it counterintuitively often outperforms methods that search directly for the objective in deceptive tasks and can induce evolutionary dynamics closer in spirit to natural evolution. The main contributions are to (1) introduce novelty search, an example of an effective search method that is not guided by actively measuring or encouraging objective progress; (2) validate novelty search by applying it to biped locomotion; (3) demonstrate novelty search’s benefits for evolvability (i.e. the ability of an organism to further evolve) in a variety of domains; (4) introduce an extension of novelty search called minimal criteria novelty search that brings a new abstraction of natural evolution to evolutionary computation (i.e. evolution as a search for many ways of iii meeting the minimal criteria of life); (5) present a second extension of novelty search called novelty search with local competition that abstracts evolution instead as a process driven towards diversity with competition playing a subservient role; and (6) evolve a diversity of functional virtual creatures in a single run as a culminating application of novelty search with local competition. Overall these contributions establish novelty search as an important new research direction for the field of evolutionary computation.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:43:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fabio Marchioreto.pdf: 2173586 bytes, checksum: 1f6d0b82dab1afc6e4015b7fcd680742 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-02-06 / This work, which deals with the importance of movement to human life, aimed to qualify the school experiences related to the movement of young people, specifically the ones learned in school and that remained in their everyday lives, what from these experiments meant learning of knowledge related to the movement in the historical and evolutionary perspective of humanity and its projections for the future (biocybernetics). It is theoretically grounded in ideas of some authors, like Jose Guilmar Mariz de Oliveira, Go Tani, Edison Jesus Manoel on Human Kinesiology, Richard Dawkins, Richard Foley, Jared Diamond, Richard Leakey history of evolution, Michel Foucault, Edgar Morin on aspects related to school education and the simplifier, disciplinarian and dualistic paradigm. The research followed the guidelines of the phenomenological method as the speech and gestures of students who are finishing the School Basic Education in São Paulo. The reflection made from the data analysis indicated students difficulty in articulating answers related to the movement in the history of culture, showing a lack of repertoire for dealing with the topic. As for the future, they forecasted a paradoxical situation between moving and cybernetics by, on the one hand, pointing out benefits like bipedal locomotion recovery and on the other hand to identify the future of human-machine interface as something dark by increasing human sedentary lifestyle. Regarding movement in the students school environment, they identified a dichotomy between the near absence of movement in the classes that take place in the classroom and the movement in Physical Education classes. However, by describing the experiences related to Physical Education classes, they interpreted this curriculum component as disconnected from the commitment to teach conceptual, procedural and attitudinal knowledge, what added little or nothing to their everyday lives. / Este trabalho trata da importância do movimentar-se para a vida humana com o objetivo de qualificar as experiências escolares de jovens relacionadas ao que aprenderam na escola e permaneceu em suas vidas cotidianas; o que destas experiências significou a aprendizagem de conhecimento relativo ao movimentar-se na perspectiva histórico-evolutiva da humanidade e suas projeções para o futuro (biocibernética). Fundamentou-se teoricamente em ideias de alguns autores, como José Guilmar Mariz de Oliveira, Go Tani, Edison de Jesus Manoel sobre a Cinesiologia Humana, Richard Dawkins, Richard Foley, Jared Diamond, Richard Leakey e a História Evolutiva, Michel de Foucault, Edgar Morin sobre os aspectos relacionados a Educação Escolar e o paradigma simplificador, disciplinador e dualista. A pesquisa seguiu as diretrizes do método fenomenológico de investigação ao registrar a fala e os gestos de alunos que estão terminando a Educação Escolar Básica na cidade de São Paulo. A reflexão realizada a partir da análise dos dados evidenciou uma dificuldade dos alunos na articulação das respostas relacionadas ao movimentar-se na história da cultura, mostrando falta de repertório para lidar com o tema. Com relação ao futuro projetaram uma situação paradoxal entre o movimentar-se e a cibernética, ao apontar benefícios como a recuperação da locomoção bípede por um lado e por outro ao identificar o futuro da relação humano-máquina como algo sombrio através da crescente sedentarização humana. Com relação ao movimentar-se no ambiente escolar os alunos identificaram uma dicotomia entre a quase ausência de movimento nas aulas que acontecem na sala de aula e o movimentar-se nas aulas de Educação Física, porém, ao qualificar as experiências relacionadas às aulas de Educação Física, interpretaram este componente curricular como desarticulado do compromisso de ensinar conhecimentos conceituais, procedimentais e atitudinais, o que pouco ou quase nada contribui para suas vidas cotidianas.

L’espèce humaine est caractérisée par une forme de locomotion bipède qui lui est propre. Toumaï, l’holotype de l’espèce Sahelanthropus tchadensis découverte au Tchad, est le plus ancien représentant connu du rameau humain. Daté de 7 millions d’années, il est très proche de la dichotomie entre ce rameau et celui des chimpanzés. C’est donc un témoin précieux des premières phases de l’évolution de la locomotion dans ce groupe. Le but de ce travail est de reconstituer le comportement locomoteur de Sahelanthropus tchadensis à partir de l’étude de la partie osseuse de son labyrinthe, organe de l’équilibre.Pour cela, les relations entre locomotion et morphologie du labyrinthe osseux sont recherchées chez les hominoïdes actuels. Les covariations entre le labyrinthe et le crâne sont étudiées chez Homo sapiens afin de déterminer l’influence sur la morphologie du labyrinthe de son intégration dans le crâne. Ces résultats sont enfin appliqués au labyrinthe de Toumaï, comparé à d’autres hominines fossiles.La morphométrie géométrique discrimine l’ensemble des espèces actuelles par l’orientation, la taille et la forme relatives de chacune des parties du labyrinthe. Cependant, la torsion et l’orientation relative des canaux semi-circulaires sont majoritairement liées à l’intégration du labyrinthe dans le crâne (orientation des pyramides pétreuses et de la face par rapport à la ligne médio-sagittale du basicrâne). Au contraire, l’excentricité des canaux et leur taille sont uniquement liées à la locomotion.Chez Sahelanthropus tchadensis, la taille des canaux semi-circulaires indique une espèce relativement plus agile que les grands singes. En revanche, il ne présente pas les rotations de canaux caractéristiques du genre Homo. La forme de ses canaux constitue une combinaison unique de caractères : canal postérieur rond et canal antérieur légèrement étiré, comme les humains et les australopithèques, mais canal latéral légèrement projeté postéro-latéralement, comme les gorilles et les babouins. Ceci indiquerait un comportement locomoteur associant le grimper vertical dans les arbres à des déplacements au sol bipèdes mais aussi quadrupèdes. / Humans are characterised by a specific form of bipedal locomotion. Toumaï, holotype specimen of Sahelanthropus tchadensis discovered in Chad, is the oldest known member of the human branch. Dated from 7 million years ago, it is very close to the dichotomy between this branch and the branch of chimpanzees. Therefore, it gives valuable information on the first stages of the evolution of locomotion is this group. The purpose of this work is to reconstruct the locomotor behaviour of Sahelanthropus tchadensis based on the study of the osseous part of its labyrinth, the balance organ.To this aim, the relationships between the locomotion and the bony labyrinth morphology are investigated in extent hominoids. The covariations between the labyrinth and the skull are studied in Homo sapiens in order to determine the influence of cranial integration on labyrinth morphology. Finally, these results are applied to the bony labyrinth of Toumaï, compared to other hominin fossils.Geometric morphometrics discriminates all extant species by the relative orientation, size and shape of each part of the labyrinth. However, the torsion and the relative orientation of the semicircular canals are mainly due to the integration of the labyrinth in the skull (petrous pyramids and face orientations relative to the midline of the basicranium). On the contrary, canal eccentricity and size are linked only to locomotion.In Sahelanthropus tchadensis, the canal size indicates that this species was more agile than great apes. However, it does not have the semicircular canal rotations characterising the genus Homo. The shape of its canals constitutes a unique combination of features: a round posterior canal and a slightly stretched anterior canal, as in humans and australopithecines, but a slightly posterolaterally projected lateral canal, as in gorillas and baboons. This is the sign of a locomotor behaviour associating vertical climbing in trees to both bipedalism and quadrupedalism on the ground.