Acquisition and Embodiment of Motion Elements in Closed Mimesis Loop

It is needed for humanoid to acquire not only just a trajectory but also aim of the behavior and symbolic information during behavior development. We have proposed the mimesis system as a framework of synchronous learning model for behavior acquisition and symbol emergence. However, the motion elements which are fundamental representation of behavior have stood on the unsuitable assumption that they are given without taking robots' embodiment and dynamics into consideration. In this paper, the design theory of motion elements with consideration of the embodiment are shown, and novel methods of realization of the mimesis for real humanoids is proposed. I n t r o d u c t i o n It is a major challenge of contemporary robotics to study robotic behaviors and intelligence in the full scale of complexity mutually sharing research outcomes and hypotheses with human behavioral science and human intelligence. The discovery of mirror neurons[i] has been a notable topic of the brain science. The neurons in the brain of a primate fire when the other's particular behavior is observed as well as when the same behavior is performed by himself. The fact suggests that the behavioral cognition process and behavioral performance process are tightly coupled. It may even leads to the hypothesis that they appear as results of a single process of information processing. If they do, the information process, to the authors' point of view, would be a source of proto-symbol that is well grounded to the physical world and embodied using his own body. It is also known that a newborn infant iramediately starts communication with his mother by imitating her performance, and develops the skill of communication and performance. It suggests the relationship between the symbols for communication and the behavioral acquisition through imitation and communication. T. Deacon[2] pointed out that the language as communication using symbols and the brain are coevolved. M. Donald[3] claims that symbol manipulation and communication using symbols are the origin of the mind. The study of mechanism of information processing for behavioral cognition and behavioral performance may be an entrance to the synthesis of human-like intelligence and the brain-like information processing. The acquisition process using the mechanism has already been a field of robotics study known as imitation learning[4][5][6]. We would like to term the whole process of the information processing of behavioral cognition and performance, and the acquisition of behavioral performances and the associated symbols, as the principle of mimesis. iiii iiiiiiiiiiiii:: i i :iE N i N iii N Niiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiii I_oHidden Markov Models] ==::: .,,,~,,iStep 4 ~ ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiM N ii i! NiiN NNINiNiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii I~Iep / I IModifing Motion Elements I I Figure 1: Overview of the mimesis system