This chapter reviews several approaches to the problem of learning by imitation in robotics. We start by describing several cognitive processes identified in the literature as necessary for imitation. We then proceed by surveying different approaches to this problem, placing particular emphasys on methods whereby an agent first learns about its own body dynamics by means of self-exploration and then uses this knowledge about its own body to recognize the actions being performed by other agents. This general approach is related to the motor theory of perception, particularly to the mirror neurons found in primates. We distinguish three fundamental classes of methods, corresponding to three abstraction levels at which imitation can be addressed. As such, the methods surveyed herein exhibit behaviors that range from raw sensory-motor trajectory matching to high-level abstract task replication. We also discuss the impact that knowledge about the world and/or the demonstrator can have on the particular behaviors exhibited.

The course will be styled as a tutorial, with one long meeting per week. Class meetings will be on Friday, from 9:00 to 12:45 (officially), at Trans 10, room 1.01. The course will be taught in English. The course can be done for 5 credit points, or for 7.5 credit points. In both cases you will have to write a research proposal as your final assignment (see below). If you wish to receive the additional credit points, an additional paper is required (see below). 2

The course will be styled as a tutorial, with one meeting per week. Class meetings will be on Friday, 15:15 to 17:00, Drift 23, room 1.07. The course can be done for 5 credit points, or for 7.5 credit points. In both cases you will have to write a research proposal as your final assignment (see below). If you wish the additional credit points, an additional paper is required (see below).

Abstract not found

Speech perception (SP) most commonly refers to the perceptual mapping from the highly variable acoustic speech signal to a linguistic representation, whether it be phonemes, diphones, syllables, or words. This is an example of categorization, in that potentially discriminable speech sounds are assigned to functionally equivalent classes. In this tutorial, we present some of the main challenges to our understanding of the categorization of speech sounds and the conceptualization of SP that has resulted from these challenges. We focus here on issues and experiments that define open research questions relevant to phoneme categorization, arguing that SP is best understood as perceptual categorization, a position that places SP in direct contact with research from other areas of perception and cognition.