Keywords
Citation
Rigelsford, J. (2003), "Imitation in Animals and Artifacts", Industrial Robot, Vol. 30 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2003.04930bae.003
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
Imitation in Animals and Artifacts
Imitation in Animals and Artifacts
K. Dautenhahn and C. L. NehanivThe MIT Press2002607 pp.ISBN 0-262-04203-7£43.50 hardback
Keywords: Artificial intelligence
“Imitation in Animals and Artifacts” provides the first inter-disciplinary coverage of imitation, behaviour matching, and observational learning. It combines the research of imitation via the construction of robots and computer software with that of studying imitation in humans and animals. The material presented is based on that given at the Imitation in Animals and Artifacts Symposium, which was organised by the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, and held in 1999.
Chapter 1 presents The Agent-Based Perspective on Imitation and describes how imitation is best considered as the behaviour of an autonomous agent in relation to its environment. The Correspondence Problem is addressed in chapter 2, while chapter 3 discusses Vocal, Social and Self-Imitation by Bottlenosed Dolphins. The following five chapters discuss topics including Art Imitates Life: Programming by Example as an Imitation Game; Learning to Fly; and Imitation of Sequential and Hierarchical Structure in Action: Experimental Studies with Children and Chimpanzees.
Chapters 9 and 10 address Three Sources of Information in Social Learning; and The Mirror System, Imitation and the Evolution of Language. Imitation: A Means to Enhance Learning of a Synthetic Protolanguage in Autonomous Robots; Challenges in Building Robots That Imitate People; and Sensory-Motor Primitives as a Basis for Imitation: Linking Perception to Action and Biology to Robots, are amongst the topics presented in chapters 11 to 15.
The following five chapters discuss subjects including Imitation as a Perceptual Process; Transformational and Associative Theories of Imitation; and Dimensions of Imitative Perception-Action Mediation. The final two chapters of the book address Goal Representations in Imitative Actions; and Informative Replication in Culture: Three Models for the Transmission of Culture Elements through Observed Action.
“Imitation in Animals and Artifacts” is an interesting and well written textbook. Aimed at a wider than usual interdisciplinary audience, at a first glance it would be easy to conclude that it is suitable for everyone and of use to no one. However, this is definitely untrue as its scope enables the transfer of ideas across disciplines and the extensive list of references at the end of each chapter allows the reader to gain a more indepth knowledge in their area of interest. This book will be of interest to both students and researchers.
Jon Rigelsford