Is That Me? Sensorimotor Learning and Self-Other Distinction in Robotics

In order to have robots interact with other agents, it is important that they are able recognize their own actions. The research reported here relates to the use of internal models for self-other distinction. We demonstrate how a humanoid robot, which acquires a sensorimotor scheme through self-exploration, can produce and predict simple trajectories that have particular characteristics. Comparing these predictions to incoming sensory information provides the robot with a basic tool for distinguishing between self and other.