Valentin Braitenberg
| Valentino Braitenberg | |
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Valentino Braitenberg
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| Born | Valentino Braitenberg June 18, 1926 Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy |
| Died | September 9, 2011 (aged 85) Tübingen, Germany |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Fields | Neuroscience, Cybernetics |
| Institutions | Naples, Tübingen |
| Alma mater | University of Innsbruck |
Valentino Braitenberg (or Valentin von Braitenberg; 18 June 1926 – 9 September 2011) was a neuroscientist and cyberneticist. He was former director at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany.
His book Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology became famous in Robotics and among Psychologists, in which he described how hypothetical analog vehicles (a combination of sensors, actuators and their interconnections), though simple in design, can exhibit behaviors akin to aggression, love, foresight, and optimism. These have come to be known as Braitenberg vehicles. His pioneering scientific work was concerned with the relation between structures and functions of the brain.
Valentino Braitenberg grew up in the province of South Tyrol. Braitenberg's father was Senator Carl von Braitenberg, a member of the South Tyrolean nobility.
Since the age of 6, Braitenberg grew up bilingual in the two languages Italian and German. German was spoken at home and all schooling was Italian, conform to the historic context. The humanistic Lyceum-Gymnasium (High school) in Bolzano gave him an excellent classic education including Italian literature. The German literary education was based on the classical writers he found in the extensive home library. In addition, he trained as a violinist at the Conservatorio Claudio Monteverdi in Bolzano and became a talented violinist and violist.
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