Imitation and robotics - background, theories, and practice

Imitation is a powerful mechanism that allows agents to learn via their interactions within a social context. An artificial system that is capable of exploiting this imitative learning capability would be able to acquire new skills and tasks from interaction with another agent (typically a human or another robot). Imitative social learning therefore presents a very interesting paradigm in robotics and computer science and within this paradigm robotics researchers are heavily influenced from interdisciplinary studies typically in biology, ethology and psychology. This tutorial takes such an interdisciplinary approach and aims to present the background and theories of imitation from biology, ethology and psychology together with some of their practical implementations in robotics. The aim of tutorial is to disseminate this research field to a wider audience.