Mimesis embodiment and proto-symbol acquisition for humanoids

Mimesis is the primitive skill of imitative learning, one of the methods for recognition of others' behavior and construction of self behavior. Mimesis is thought an origin of human intelligence because this function is observed not only at humans but also at animals. When the mimesis is adopted as learning method for humanoids, designing full body behavior becomes easier because bottom-up learning approaches from robot side are combined with top-down teaching approaches from user side involved each other. Therefore, we have developed a behavior acquisition and understanding system for humanoid robots based on mimesis. This system is able to abstract observed others' behaviors into conceptual symbols, to recognize others' behavior using proto-symbols, and to generate self motion patterns using the proto-symbols. In this paper, we mention the integration of mimesis loop, and confirmation of the feasibility on virtual humanoids.