Imitation in Animals and Artifacts
Imitation in Animals and Artifacts by Chrystopher L. Nehaniv, published by MIT Press in 2002, is a comprehensive exploration of the imitative abilities found in both humans and animals. This first edition spans 607 pages and delves into various fields such as animal behavior, artificial intelligence, and comparative psychology. The book aims to integrate research on imitation across these disciplines, providing insights into how both biological and artificial agents learn and adapt through imitation.
Readers will find a detailed examination of the significance of imitation in fostering collaboration between software agents and humans, as well as its role in enabling robotic systems to acquire skills independently of direct programming. The text addresses the complex challenges involved in developing robots and software that can effectively imitate actions, drawing parallels with the natural imitative behaviors observed in animals. This work serves as a foundational resource for those interested in the intersections of psychology, cognitive science, and technology.
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The effort to explain the imitative abilities of humans and other animals draws on fields as diverse as animal behavior, artificial intelligence, computer science, comparative psychology, neuroscience, primatology, and linguistics. This volume represents a first step toward integrating research from those studying imitation in humans and other animals, and those studying imitation through the construction of computer software and robots.
Imitation is of particular importance in enabling robotic or software agents to share skills without the intervention of a programmer and in the more general context of interaction and collaboration between software agents and humans. Imitation provides a way for the agent — whether biological or artificial — to establish a “social relationship” and learn about the demonstrator’s actions, in order to include them in its own behavioral repertoire. Building robots and software agents that can imitate other artificial or human agents in an appropriate way involves complex problems of perception, experience, context, and action, solved in nature in various ways by animals that imitate.
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