Meiji University researchers built a robot that can recognize itself in the mirror. This form of mirror image cognition is arguably a step toward self-awareness. In another experiment, one robot representing the "self," imitated another robot, acting as "the other." Signals from the first robot apparently indicated that the first robot "understood" that the other robot was mimicing its behavior. From Discovery News:
"In humans, consciousness is basically a state in which the behavior of the self and another is understood," said (scientist Junichi) Takeno.Humans learn behavior during cognition and conversely learn to think while behaving, said Takeno…
Imitation, said Takeno, is an act that requires both seeing a behavior in another and instantly transferring it to oneself and is the best evidence of consciousness.
