Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

A growing body of research suggests that modularity of both gene networks and behavioral phenotypes increases robust-ness and efficiency of the evolution of intelligence by natural selection. It remains far less clear how modularity itselfevolves in the first place. A smaller body of research points to the importance of considering the co-evolution of mor-phology and control systems in autonomous agents. We report research using both simulated and real robots that teststhe hypotheses that (1) genotype to phenotype (G-P) maps that allow for gene duplication evolve more modular structuresthan those that do not, and (2) more modular agents evolve more rapidly. We also provide preliminary evidence related tothe positive effects of morphology-controller co-evolution as compared with the evolution of controllers alone. An new,process rather than part based G-P map is also introduced.