Imitation and Agency

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1. What does it mean to understand agency?

a. It means to be able to understand intention. E.g. in Shimizu and Johnson’s

study the agent condition was defined as the condition in which the object

behaved in self-propelled ways that appeared intentional.

2. In Shimizu and Johnson’s study, what was the main finding?

a. In the study 12-month- old infants were tested for their willingness to encode a

b. Infants in the first two conditions were found to encode the approach behavior as

simple approach behavior as goal-directed as a function of whether it was

performed by

i. a human hand

ii. a morphologically unfamiliar green object that interacted with a

confederate and behaved intentionally, or

iii. the same unfamiliar green object that behaved in a matched, but

apparently random manner.

goal-directed. This means that twelve-month- old infants are able to interpret the

behavior of an ambiguous object as goal-directed if they first observed the object

behave in ways that were intentional. Therefore, the authors conclude that

infants are able to attribute goals to non-human, unfamiliar agents. By the end of

the first year of life infants havwhich leads to construe clocks and other created

objects in terms of their intended functione a broad understanding of what counts

as an agent that cannot easily be reduced to humans, objects that are similar to

humans, or objects that display self-propulsion.

3. What is teleological thinking?

a. Teleological explanations are based on the assumption that objects, behavior

and events occur for a purpose. Teleological explanations are a central aspect of

adult thought. They play an important part in reasoning about living things, e.g.

that biological structures such as eyes and hearts are designed for a purpose.

They constrain pure thinking about artifacts, . For example, a teleological

explanation of why forks have prongs is that this design helps humans eat certain

foods; stabbing food to help humans eat is what forks are for. The study by

Kelemen (1999) found that children in all grades, even fourth grade, preferred

teleological over physical explanations of the properties of objects such as rocks

and stones. On the other hand, adults were selective in their application of

teleological explanations and specific about the kinds of functions that they

accepted.

4. Why is imitation cognitive?

a. Imitation of social conventions, goals/intentions is cognitive, because the stimuli

that is to be copied is not immediately available to the senses, but is inferred (i.e.,

cognitive stimuli). The copying of this class (non-motor) is unobservable and

therefore must be inferred by the observer.

5. What is Meltzoff & Moore’s 1973 finding?

a. Meltzoff and Moore 1973: Changes in brain-patterning from seeing are translated

into specific motor-patterning which, for example in the infant, produces the re-

presentation of the adult facial movement.

6. What is the difference between motor mimicry and voluntary imitation and emulation?

a. Motor mimicry: The observer acts as if in the other person’s place and displays

b. Voluntary imitation: Voluntary’ imitation or intentional imitation means that the

c. Emulation: In emulation learning, subjects learn about parts of their environment

an appropriate behavior according to the situation. E.g. wincing at the other

person’s pain or smiling at the other person’s delight. Motor mimicry has been

seen as an indicator of a vicarious cognitive or empathic experience, that is, of

taking the role of the other person.

observer copies an observed action. Determining the appropriate action

dimensions for imitation, and therefore what constitutes successful performance,

is accomplished through the interpretation of subtle cues relating to the social

context.

and use this to achieve their own goals. E.g. Animals learn some causal relations

of the environment. Emulation comprises a large span of cognitive complexity,

from minimal cognitive complexity to very complex levels.