Elementary Developmental Process of Intentional Agency: Artificial Construction of Gaze Alternation in Communicative Eye Gaze by Infants

It has been pointed out that gaze alternation by infants, which is a basis for social communication, is related to the process of the development of intentional agency. Intentional agency is defined as an act with a desired goal and a means. It has been pointed out that infants understand others’ intentions based on intentional agency. In our recent work, we constructed a computational model which acquired gaze alternation behavior with elementary intentional agency. In this paper, through the analysis of the behavior and the internal states of the constructed model, we confirm that two mechanisms, discrimination and accumulation, play an important role in developing elementary intentional agency. The former discriminates between a caregiver and objects that are producing stimuli. The latter associates the caregiver with the objects by accumulating relationships between sensory states. We also argue that a nested structure, in which gaze alternation composed of a goal and a means is utilized as a means to achieve another goal, is an important feature in the development of intentional agency. Index Terms — Gaze Alternation, Communicative Eye Gaze, Understanding Others’ Intention, Intentional Agency, Constructive Approach.