Associative computational model of mirror neurons that connects missing link between behaviors and symbols

Behavior recognition process and behavior generation process have a close relationship in humans' brains. It is expected that humans' brains understand the meaning of behavior and create symbols through co-development of recognition and generation processes. In this paper, we propose a novel method for the integration of behavior patterns and symbols using associative memory in order to realize the co-development processing. In the model, behavior recognition process and generation process are practiced based on a mutual dynamics. We also confirmed the feasibility of the method on humanoid sim-ulator. 1 Introduction The research of humanoid robots has a long history and has accumulated a substantial amount of literature. The focus of early efforts was mostly on the dynamics, motion planning, and control of biped walk. Although it has not yet reached the level of complete solution with full of liability and adaptability , the hardware technology has been established for building the autonomous humanoids. The focus of humanoid research is now about to extend to the research on human-like intelligence. The mirror neurons[I] are found in the frontal lobes of human and primate. They activate themselves not only when he/she observes a specific behavior of the others, but also when he/she intends to act the same behavior. Furthermore, the mirror neurons are located at neither motor field nor sensory field but broker's field which has close relationship with language field. It implies that the behavior perception process and behavior generation process might be integrated as an organization which has a close relationship between symbol manipulation. In the field of cognitive science, a hypothesis of mimesis[2] also drawing attentions. Mimesis is the primitive skill of communicative intelligence with imitation learning; understanding the others' behaviors and constructing self-behaviors. Especially, the primates who cannot manipulate speech languages can make social communications through behavior imitation[3]. On the other hand, Deacon[4] advocates a hypothesis that the brains of humans have co-evolved with symbol communication, in other words, humans' high-degree intelligence cannot be realized without skill of symbol manipulation. As a consequence , a suggestion is arises that the origin of human intelligence results from the skill of imitation learning which is the strong combination of behavior perception and generation. We believe that the theory of integration between behavior perception and generation leads to the breakthrough for the synthesis theory of artificial intelligence , like an embodiment of humanoids, symbol grounding problems, and so on. Although many …