Article published In:
Interaction StudiesVol. 5:1 (2004) ► pp.45–74
Toward communication
First imitations in infants, low-functioning children with autism and robots
Adopting a functionalist perspective, we emphasize the interest of considering imitation as a single capacity with two functions: communication and learning. These two functions both imply such capacities as detection of novelty, attraction toward moving stimuli and perception-action coupling. We propose that the main difference between the processes involved in the two functions is that, in the case of learning, the dynamics is internal to the system constituted by an individual whereas in the case of communication, the dynamics concerns the system composed by the perception of one individual coupled with the action of the other.
In this paper, we compare the first developmental steps of imitation in three populations: typically developing children, children with autism, and robots. We show evidence of strong correlations between imitating and being imitated in typical infants and low-functioning children with autism. Relying on this evidence, the robotic perspective is to provide a generic architecture able not only to learn via imitation but also to interact as an emerging property of the system constituted by two similar architectures with a different history.
Keywords: Communication, Imitation, Development, Infant, Children with autism, Autonomous robot/s
Cited by
Cited by 50 other publications
Ansermin, Eva, Philippe Gaussier, Antoine de Rengerve, Chiles Mostafaoui & Ludovic Marin
2017. 2017 Joint IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-EpiRob), ► pp. 384 ff. 
Bar-Cohen, Yoseph, David Hanson & Adi Marom
2009. Trends in Robotics. In The Coming Robot Revolution, ► pp. 117 ff.
Berger, Natalie I. & Brooke Ingersoll
2013. An Exploration of Imitation Recognition in Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders. Autism Research 6:5 ► pp. 411 ff.
Berger, Natalie I. & Brooke Ingersoll
2015. An Evaluation of Imitation Recognition Abilities in Typically Developing Children and Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Autism Research 8:4 ► pp. 442 ff.
Billard, Aude G., Sylvain Calinon & Rüdiger Dillmann
2016. Learning from Humans. In Springer Handbook of Robotics [Springer Handbooks, ], ► pp. 1995 ff.
Chaminade, Thierry
2006. ROMAN 2006 - The 15th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, ► pp. 769 ff.
Chaminade, Thierry & Gordon Cheng
2009. Social cognitive neuroscience and humanoid robotics. Journal of Physiology-Paris 103:3-5 ► pp. 286 ff.
Chaminade, Thierry, Erhan Oztop, Gordon Cheng & Mitsuo Kawato
2008. From self-observation to imitation: Visuomotor association on a robotic hand. Brain Research Bulletin 75:6 ► pp. 775 ff.
Dautenhahn, Kerstin
2007. Socially intelligent robots: dimensions of human–robot interaction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 362:1480 ► pp. 679 ff.
Davila-Ross, Marina, Johanna Hutchinson, Jamie L. Russell, Jennifer Schaeffer, Aude Billard, William D. Hopkins & Kim A. Bard
2014. Triggering social interactions: chimpanzees respond to imitation by a humanoid robot and request responses from it. Animal Cognition 17:3 ► pp. 589 ff.
Duquette, Audrey, François Michaud & Henri Mercier
2008. Exploring the use of a mobile robot as an imitation agent with children with low-functioning autism. Autonomous Robots 24:2 ► pp. 147 ff.
Ezell, Shauna, Tiffany Field, Jacqueline Nadel, Rae Newton, Greg Murrey, Vijaya Siddalingappa, Susan Allender & Ava Grace
2012. Imitation Effects on Joint Attention Behaviors of Children with Autism. Psychology 03:09 ► pp. 681 ff.
Frost, Kyle M., Anamiguel Pomales-Ramos & Brooke Ingersoll
2022. Brief Report: Response to Joint Attention and Object Imitation as Predictors of Expressive and Receptive Language Growth Rate in Young Children on the Autism Spectrum. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
Gaussier, Philippe, Ken Prepin & Jacqueline Nadel
2004. Toward a Cognitive System Algebra: Application to Facial Expression Learning and Imitation. In Embodied Artificial Intelligence [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 3139], ► pp. 243 ff.
Giannopulu, Irini
2013. Multimodal interactions in typically and atypically developing children: natural versus artificial environments. Cognitive Processing 14:4 ► pp. 323 ff.
Giannopulu, Irini
2013. 2013 8th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), ► pp. 127 ff.
Giannopulu, Irini
2015. Enrobotment: Toy Robots in the Developing Brain. In Handbook of Digital Games and Entertainment Technologies, ► pp. 1 ff.
Giannopulu, Irini
2016. Enrobotment: Toy Robots in the Developing Brain. In Handbook of Digital Games and Entertainment Technologies, ► pp. 1 ff.
Giannopulu, Irini
2017. Enrobotment: Toy Robots in the Developing Brain. In Handbook of Digital Games and Entertainment Technologies, ► pp. 1011 ff.
Giannopulu, Irini
2018. Externalised Mind 1. In Neuroscience, Robotics and Virtual Reality: Internalised vs Externalised Mind/Brain [Cognitive Computation Trends, 1], ► pp. 123 ff.
Goodrich, Michael A., Jacob W. Crandall & Emilia Barakova
2013. Teleoperation and Beyond for Assistive Humanoid Robots. Reviews of Human Factors and Ergonomics 9:1 ► pp. 175 ff.
Hanika, Leslie & Wanda Boyer
2019. Imitation and Social Communication in Infants. Early Childhood Education Journal 47:5 ► pp. 615 ff.
Hauf, Petra
2007. Infants’ perception and production of intentional actions. In From Action to Cognition [Progress in Brain Research, 164], ► pp. 285 ff.
Ingersoll, Brooke, Natalie Berger, Danielle Carlsen & Theresa Hamlin
2017. Improving social functioning and challenging behaviors in adolescents with ASD and significant ID: A randomized pilot feasibility trial of reciprocal imitation training in a residential setting. Developmental Neurorehabilitation 20:4 ► pp. 236 ff.
Masumori, Atsushi, Norihiro Maruyama & Takashi Ikegami
2021. Personogenesis Through Imitating Human Behavior in a Humanoid Robot “Alter3”. Frontiers in Robotics and AI 7
Masur, Elise Frank & Janet Olson
2008. Mothers’ and infants’ responses to their partners’ spontaneous action and vocal/verbal imitation. Infant Behavior and Development 31:4 ► pp. 704 ff.
Mutabbakani, Raghad & Carol Callinan
2020. Mothers’ Perspectives on the Inclusion of Young Autistic Children in Kuwait. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 50:4 ► pp. 1198 ff.
Nehaniv, Chrystopher L. & Kerstin Dautenhahn
2007. Synchrony and turn-taking as communicative mechanisms. In Imitation and Social Learning in Robots, Humans and Animals, ► pp. 275 ff.
O'Neill, Michelle B. & M. Suzanne Zeedyk
2006. Spontaneous imitation in the social interactions of young people with developmental delay and their adult carers. Infant and Child Development 15:3 ► pp. 283 ff.
Oudeyer, P.-Y.
2010. On the Impact of Robotics in Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences: From Insect Navigation to Human Cognitive Development. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development 2:1 ► pp. 2 ff.
Oudeyer, Pierre-Yves
2011. Sur les interactions entre la robotique et les sciences de l’esprit et du comportement. In Informatique et sciences cognitives, ► pp. 235 ff.
Park, Gibeom & Jun Tani
2015. Development of compositional and contextual communicable congruence in robots by using dynamic neural network models. Neural Networks 72 ► pp. 109 ff.
Paulraj, Smily Jesu Priya Victor, Ruwinah Abdul Karim & Jayachandran Vetrayan
2015. Evaluation of Occupational Performance Imitation Intervention on Three Imitation Learnings among Autism: Case Series. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 202 ► pp. 58 ff.
Pioggia, G., R. Igliozzi, M. Ferro, A. Ahluwalia, F. Muratori & D. De Rossi
2005. An android for enhancing social skills and emotion recognition in people with autism. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering 13:4 ► pp. 507 ff.
Pioggia, G., M.L. Sica, M. Ferro, R. Igliozzi, F. Muratori, A. Ahluwalia & D. De Rossi
2007. RO-MAN 2007 - The 16th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, ► pp. 605 ff.
Pradel, Gilbert, Pascale Dansart, Arnaud Puret & Catherine Barthelemy
2010. IECON 2010 - 36th Annual Conference on IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, ► pp. 1540 ff.
Prepin, Ken & Arnaud Revel
2007. Human–machine interaction as a model of machine–machine interaction: how to make machines interact as humans do. Advanced Robotics 21:15 ► pp. 1709 ff.
Puyon, Michel & Irini Giannopulu
2013. 2013 IEEE RO-MAN, ► pp. 593 ff.
Revel, Arnaud & Jacqueline Nadel
2007. How to build an imitator. In Imitation and Social Learning in Robots, Humans and Animals, ► pp. 279 ff.
Richardson, Kathleen
2018. Autism and the Machine. In Challenging Sociality [Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI, ], ► pp. 103 ff.
Richardson, Kathleen
2018. Introduction: Challenging Sociality. In Challenging Sociality [Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI, ], ► pp. 1 ff.
Richardson, Kathleen
2018. Critical Autism Studies and Robot Therapy. In Challenging Sociality [Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI, ], ► pp. 121 ff.
Robins, B., K. Dautenhahn, C.L. Nehaniv, N.A. Mirza, D. Francois & L. Olsson
2005. ROMAN 2005. IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 2005., ► pp. 716 ff.
Santos, Laura, Alice Geminiani, Paul Schydlo, Ivana Olivieri, Jose Santos-Victor & Alessandra Pedrocchi
2021. Design of a Robotic Coach for Motor, Social and Cognitive Skills Training Toward Applications With ASD Children. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering 29 ► pp. 1223 ff.
Saunders, Joe, Chrystopher L. Nehaniv & Kerstin Dautenhahn
2008. 2008 ECSIS Symposium on Learning and Adaptive Behaviors for Robotic Systems (LAB-RS), ► pp. 9 ff.
Tisseron, Serge, Frédéric Tordo & Ritta Baddoura
2015. Testing Empathy with Robots: A Model in Four Dimensions and Sixteen Items. International Journal of Social Robotics 7:1 ► pp. 97 ff.
TÖRET, Gökhan & Emine Rüya ÖZMEN
2019. Karşılıklı Taklit Eğitiminin Otizm Spektrum Bozukluğu Olan Çocukların Taklit Edildiğinin Farkına Varma Davranışları Üzerindeki Etkililiği. Ankara Üniversitesi Eğitim Bilimleri Fakültesi Özel Eğitim Dergisi 20:1 ► pp. 29 ff.
Vincini, Stefano & Shaun Gallagher
2021. Developmental phenomenology: examples from social cognition. Continental Philosophy Review 54:2 ► pp. 183 ff.
Zeedyk, M. Suzanne
2006. From intersubjectivity to subjectivity: the transformative roles of emotional intimacy and imitation. Infant and Child Development 15:3 ► pp. 321 ff.
Zeedyk, M. Suzanne & Mikael Heimann
2006. Imitation and socio-emotional processes: implications for communicative development and interventions. Infant and Child Development 15:3 ► pp. 219 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 may 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.