Emergent Spontaneous Movements Based on Embodiment: Toward a General Principle for Early Development

Abstract

We investigate whether spontaneous movements, which initiate and guide early development in animals, can be accounted for by the properties underlying embodiment. We constructed computer and robotic models of several biological species with biologically plausible musculoskeletal bodies and nervous systems, and extracted the embodied and motor networks based on inter-muscle connectivities. In computer simulations and robot experiments, we found that the embodied and motor networks had similar global and local topologies, suggesting the key role of embodiment in generating spontaneous movements in animals.