Citizendia
Your Ad Here

For the musical term, see Imitation (music). In music imitation is when a musical gesture is repeated later in a different form but retaining its original character

Imitation is an advanced behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's. Behavior or behaviour (see spelling differences) refers to the actions or Reactions of an object or Organism, usually The word can be applied in many contexts, ranging from animal training to international politics. Animal training refers to Teaching Animals specific responses to specific conditions or stimuli.

Contents

Music

In music, imitation refers to the repetition of a phrase played on one instrument or voice by another. Music is an Art form in which the medium is Sound organized in Time. A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified for the purpose of making Music.

Anthropology and Social Sciences

In anthropology, diffusion theories explain why cultures imitate the ideas or practices of other cultures. Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of Cultural diffusion, as first conceptualized by Alfred L Kroeber in his influential 1940 paper Stimulus Diffusion, or trans-cultural diffusion in later reformulations Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic An idea is a form (such as a Thought) formed by Consciousness (including Mind) through the Process of ideation. Some theories hold that all cultures imitate ideas from one or a few original cultures, the Adam of the Bible, or several cultural circles that overlap. See also Adam and Eve Adam ( Hebrew: אָדָם was according to a literal interpretation of Genesis, the first man created by Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin Evolutionary diffusion theory holds that cultures are influenced by one another, but that similar ideas can be developed in isolation.

It has been argued by Susan Blackmore in The Meme Machine, that imitation is what makes humans unique among animals. Susan Jane Blackmore (born 29 July, 1951) is an English Freelance writer, Lecturer, and broadcaster on Psychology The Meme Machine ( 1999) is a Popular science book by Psychologist Susan Blackmore on the subject of Memes Blackmore attempts Imitation might have been selected as fit by evolution because those who were good at it had a wider arsenal of learned cultural behavior at their disposal, such as tool making or even language.

In mid-20th century, social scientists began to study how and why people imitate ideas. Everett Rogers pioneered diffusion of innovations studies, using research to prove factors in adoption and profiles of adopters of ideas. Everett M Rogers ( March 6, 1931 - October 21, 2004) communications scholar pioneer of Diffusion of innovations theory writer According to Rogers(2003 "Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social System

Neuroscience

Studies of the human brain using fMRI have revealed a network of regions in the inferior frontal cortex and inferior parietal cortex which are typically actived during imitation tasks [1]. Functional MRI or functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI is a type of specialized MRI scan The frontal lobe is an area in the Brain of Mammals It is located at the front of each Cerebral hemisphere and positioned anterior to (in front of the The parietal lobe is a lobe in the Brain. It is positioned above (superior to the Occipital lobe and behind (posterior to the Frontal lobe. It has been suggested that these regions contain mirror neurons similar to the mirror neurons recorded in the macaque monkey [2]. A mirror neuron is a Neuron which fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another (especially Conspecific The macaques (məˈkæk constitute a genus ( Macaca, /məˈkækə/ of Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. However, it is not clear if macaques spontaneously imitate each other in the wild.

Neurologist V.S. Ramachandran argues that the evolution of mirror neurons were important in the human acquisition of complex skills such as language and believes mirror neurons to be a most important advanced in neuroscience. Vilayanur S "Rama" Ramachandran is a neurologist best known for his work in the fields of Behavioral neurology and Psychophysics. [3] However, little evidence directly supports the theory that mirror neuron activity is involved in cognitive functions such as empathy or learning by imitation [4]. Further research into these topics is ongoing.

Animal Behaviour

There are debates among scientists over whether animals can truly imitate novel actions or whether imitation is uniquely human. [5] The current controversy is partly due to different definitions of imitation. The definition by Thorndike of “learning to do an act from seeing it done” [6] has two major shortcomings: first, by using “seeing” it restricts imitation to the visual domain and excludes e. g. vocal imitation and, second, it would also include mechanisms such as priming, contagious behaviour and social facilitation [7], which most scientist want to distinguish from imitation as separate forms of observational learning. Observational learning (also known as vicarious learning or social learning or modeling or monkey see monkey do) is learning that occurs as Thorpe suggested defining imitation as “the copying of a novel or otherwise improbable act or utterance, or some act for which there is clearly no instinctive tendency” [8]. Instinct is the inherent disposition of a living Organism toward a particular Behavior. This definition is favoured by many scholars, though questions have been raised how strictly the term “novel” has to be interpreted and how exactly a performed act has to match the demonstration to count as a copy. In 1952 Hayes & Hayes [9] used the “Do-as-I-do” procedure to demonstrate the imitative abilities of their trained chimpanzee “Viki”. Chimpanzee (often shortened to chimp) is the common name for the two extant Species of Apes in the Genus Pan. Their study was repeatedly criticised for its subjectivity in the interpretation of the responses of their subject. Replications of this study [10] found much lower matching degrees between the subjects and their models. However, imitation research focusing on the copying fidelity got new momentum from a recent study by Voelkl and Huber [11]. They performed detailed analyses of the motion trajectories of both model and observer monkeys and found a high matching degree in their movement patterns. Trajectory is the path a moving object follows through space The object might be a Projectile or a Satellite, for example A monkey is any member of either the New World monkeys or Old World monkeys two of the three groupings of Simian Primates the third group being In parallel to these studies comparative psychologists used experimental designs where they provided tools or apparatuses that could be handled in different ways. With such a paradigm Heyes [12][13] and co-workers reported evidence for imitation in rats which pushed a lever in the same direction as their models, though later on they withdrew their claims due to methodological problems in their original setup [14]. Rats are various medium sized long-tailed Rodents of the superfamily Muroidea By trying to design a testing paradigm that is less arbitrary than pushing a lever to the left or to the right, Custance and co-workers [15] introduced the “artificial fruit” paradigm, where a small object could be opened in different ways to retrieve food placed inside the object – not unlike a hard shelled fruit. Using this paradigm, scientists reported evidence for imitation in monkeys[16][17] and apes [18][19][20].

References

  1. ^ Marco Iacoboni, Roger P. Woods, Marcel Brass, Harold Bekkering, John C. Mazziotta, Giacomo Rizzolatti, Cortical Mechanisms of Human Imitation, Science 286:5449 (1999)
  2. ^ Rizzolatti G. , Craighero L. , The mirror-neuron system, Annual Review of Neuroscience. 2004;27:169-92
  3. ^ V. S. Ramachandran, Mirror Neurons and imitation learning as the driving force behind "the great leap forward" in human evolution. Edge Foundation. Retrieved on 2006-11-16.
  4. ^ Dinstein I, Thomas C, Behrmann M, Heeger DJ (2008). "A mirror up to nature". Curr Biol 18 (1): R13–8. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2008.01.044. A digital object identifier ( DOI) is a permanent identifier given to an Electronic document. PMID 18177704.  
  5. ^ Zentall, T. R. (2006). Imitation: Definitions, evidence, and mechanisms. Animal Cognition, 9, 335-353. Full text
  6. ^ Thorndike, E. L. (1898). Animal intelligence. “Psychological Review Monographs 2,” No. 8.
  7. ^ Heyes, C. M. and B. G. J. Galef, (1996). “Social Learning in Animals: The Roots of Culture. ” San Diego, Academic Press.
  8. ^ Thorpe, W. H. (1963). “Learning and Instinct in Animals. ” London, Methuen.
  9. ^ Hayes, K. J. and Hayes, C. (1952). Imitation in a home-raised chimpanzee. “Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 45,” 450-459.
  10. ^ Custance, D. -M. , Whiten, A. and Bard, K. A. (1995). Can young chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) imitate arbitrary actions? Hayes & Hayes (1952) revisited. “Behaviour, 132,”. 837-859.
  11. ^ Voelkl, B. and Huber, L. (2007): Imitation as faithful copying of a novel technique in marmoset monkeys. “PLoS one 2 (7),” e611. Full text
  12. ^ Heyes, C. M. , Dawson, G. R. and Nokes, T. (1992). Imitation in rats: initial responding and transfer evidence. “The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 45 B,” 229-240.
  13. ^ Heyes, C. M. and Dawson, G. R. (1990). A demonstration of observational learning in rats using a bidirectional control. “The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 42 B,” 59-71.
  14. ^ Heyes, C. M. , Ray, E. D. , Mitchell, C. J. and Nokes, T. (2000). Stimulus Enhancement: Controls for Social Facilitation and Local Enhancement. “Learning and Motivation, 31,” 83–98.
  15. ^ Custance, D. , Whiten, A. , and Fredman, T. (1999). Social learning of an artificial fruit task in capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). "Journal of Comparative Psychology, 113," 13-23.
  16. ^ Bugnyar, T. and Huber, L. (1997). Push or pull: an experimental study on imitation in marmosets. “Animal Behaviour, 1997,” 817-831.
  17. ^ Voelkl, B. and Huber, L. True imitation in marmosets. “Animal Behaviour, 60,” 195-202.
  18. ^ Whiten, A. , Custance, D. M. , Gomez, J. C. , Teixidor, P. , and Bard, K. A. (1996). Imitative learning of artificial fruit processing in children (Homo sapiens) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). “Journal of Comparative Psychology 110,” 3-14.
  19. ^ Stoinsky, T. S. Wrate, J. L. Ure, N. Whiten, A. (2001). Imitative Learning by Captive Western Lowland Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in a Simulated Food-Processing Task. ”Journal of Comparative Psychology, 115,” 272-281.
  20. ^ Whiten, A. , Horner, V. , Litchfield, C. A. , and Marshall-Pescini, S. (2004). How do apes ape? “Learning and Behavior 32,” 36-52.

See also

Further reading

Dictionary

imitation

-noun

  1. The act of imitating.
  2. A copy.
© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic