A developmental approach to the emergence of communication in socially situated embodied agents

This paper reports on a developmental approach to the learning of communication in embodied agents, taking inspiration from child development and recent advances in the understanding of the mirror neuron system within the brain. We describe a part of the ROSSI project which focuses upon gestural communication in the form of pointing. We are examining the idea that pointing may be a key step towards simple spoken communication and exploring the internal representations that may be formed during this process. The possible developmental stages leading to proto-imperative pointing actions in a robotic system are outlined, and how this may be built upon to result in an understanding of two word speech is discussed. The learning mechanism is based around Piagetian schema learning whilst the developmental path follows a mixture of Piagetian and Vygotskian theories.