Page 180 - Socially Intelligent Agents Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots

Infanoid 163

To explain the origin of action capture, we assume that neonates possess
amodal (or synesthetic) perception [2], in which both exteroception (of visual,
tactile, etc.) and proprioception (of inner feelings produced from body postures
and movements) appear in a single space spanned by dimensions such as spa-
tial/temporal frequency, amplitude, and egocentric localization. This amodal
perception would produce reflexive imitation, like that of facial expressions
and head rotation. Beginning with quite a rough mapping, the reflexive imita-
tion would get fine-tuned through social interaction (e.g., imitation play) with
caregivers.

5. Being communicative

The ability to identify with others allows one to acquire empathetic under-
standing of others’ intentions behind their behaviors. The robot ascribes the
indirectly experienced behavior to the mental state estimated by using self-
reflection. In terms of its own intentionality, self-reflection tells the robot the
mental state that best describes the behavior. The robot then projects this men-
tal state back onto the original behavior. This is how it understands others’
intentions.
This empathetic understanding of others’ intentions is not only the key to
human communication, but also the key to imitative learning. Imitation is
qualitatively different from emulation; while emulation is the reproduction of
the same result by means of a pre-existing behavioral repertoire or one’s own
trial-and-error, imitation copies the intentional use of methods for obtaining
goals [4, 9]. This ability to imitate is specific to Homo sapiens and has given
the species the ability to share individual creations and to maintain them over
generations, creating language and culture in the process [9].
Language acquisition by individuals also relies on the empathetic under-
standing of others’ intentions. A symbol in language is not a label of referent,
but a piece of high-potential information from which the receiver derives the
sender’s intention to manifest something in the environment [8]. The robot,
therefore, has to learn the use of symbols to communicate intentions through
identifying itself with others.

6. Conclusion

Our ontogenetic approach to social intelligence was originally motivated by
the recent study of autism and related developmental disorders. Autism re-
searchers have found that infants with autism have difficulty in joint attention
and bodily imitation [1, 9], as well as in pragmatic communication. This im-