M. Asada et al. (Eds.): SAB 2008, LNAI 5040, pp. 477–487, 2004. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004 On Modeling Proto-Imitation in a Pre-associative Babel Elpida Tzafestas Institute of Communication and Computer Systems National Technical University of Athens Zographou Campus, 15773 Athens, Greece brensham@softlab.ece.ntua.gr Abstract. In this paper we present a model of generative proto-imitation that replicates external signals without associating with objects, as in higher-level imitation. A mixed population of adults, that have fixed associations objects- signals, and infants, that do not have associations but imitate unconditionally, endowed with a kinship and interaction structure, allows infants to develop signal affinity with their kin in a variety of conditions and within an initial random world, i.e. in a Babel. Our results indicate that the communicative value of imitation can be discovered after the basic apparatus is in place, rather than that communication is the end to which imitation is the means. Keywords: Imitation, proto-imitation, kinship, Baldwin effect, development. 1 Introduction Research in imitation spreads in various disciplines (for an overview see [1]) and generally centers around two major themes: the role of imitation in social interaction and communication and the mechanism by which imitated responses are produced. Functional studies related to social behavior and communication are common both in psychology and theoretical biology and rely on the implicit assumption that imitation is mainly a means to (learn to) communicate or interact socially [2][3][4]. Studies related to the neural mechanisms behind imitative response generation investigate mainly phenomena of neonatal or early infant imitation and are tackling questions such as the degree to which neonatal imitation is goal-directed, motivated and selective [5][6]. Other important issues we retained from the literature as specifications for modeling are: • Imitation should start as a reactive or impulsive process and subsequently catalyze itself through the social interaction itself. This self-catalysis may be through direct training by adults; adult turn-taking in imitation is one such way of training [4]. • Imitation is a multi-level process found in many different forms of varying degrees of complexity in a vast number of animal species [7]. However, even animals that can imitate cannot learn to communicate at a