Imitation and Social Learning in Robots, Humans and Animals: Behavioural, Social and Communicative Dimensions

Mechanisms of imitation and social matching play a fundamental role in development, communication, interaction, learning and culture. Their investigation in different agents (animals, humans and robots) has significantly influenced our understanding of the nature and origins of social intelligence. Whilst such issues have traditionally been studied in areas such as psychology, biology and ethnology, it has become increasingly recognised that a 'constructive approach' towards imitation and social learning via the synthesis of artificial agents can provide important insights into mechanisms and create artefacts that can be instructed and taught by imitation, demonstration, and social interaction rather than by explicit programming. This book studies increasingly sophisticated models and mechanisms of social matching behaviour and marks an important step towards the development of an interdisciplinary research field, consolidating and providing a valuable reference for the increasing number of researchers in the field of imitation and social learning in robots, humans and animals.

Chrystopher L. Nehaniv is Research Professor of Mathematical and Evolutionary Computer Sciences in the School of Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire, where he works with the Adaptive Systems, Algorithms and BioComputation Research Groups. He is the Director of the UK EPSRC Network on Evolvability in Biological and Software Systems and an Associate Editor of BioSystems: Journal of Biological and Information Processing Sciences and Interaction Studies: Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems.

Kerstin Dautenhahn is Research Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the School of Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire, where she is a coordinator of the Adaptive Systems Research Group. Her research interests include social learning, human-robot interaction, social robotics, narrative and robotic assisted therapy for children with autism. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Interaction Studies: Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems and the general chair of the IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2006).