Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Some studies hypothesize a strong interdependence betweenspeech and tool use development in the first two years of life.To help understand the underlying mechanisms, we presentthe first robotic model learning both speech and tool use fromscratch. It focuses on the role of one important form of bodybabbling where exploration is directed towards self-generatedgoals in free play, combined with imitation learning of a con-tingent caregiver. This model does not assume capabilities forcomplex sequencing and combinatorial planning which are of-ten considered necessary for tool use. Yet, we show that themechanisms in this model allow a learner to progressively dis-cover how to grab objects with the hand, how to use objectsas tools to reach further objects, how to produce vocal sounds,and how to leverage these vocal sounds to use a caregiver asa social tool to retrieve objects. Also, the discovery that cer-tain sounds can be used as a social tool further guides vocallearning. This model predicts that the grounded exploration ofobjects in a social interaction scenario should accelerate infantvocal learning of accurate sounds for these objects’ names.