Imitation-matching the configural body movements of another individual-plays a crucial part in social interaction. We investigated whether automatic imitation is not only influenced by who we imitate (ingroup vs. outgroup member) but also by the nature of an expected interaction situation (competitive vs. cooperative). In line with assumptions from Social Identity Theory), we predicted that bot...

The present study used an elicited imitation paradigm to test the prediction of Schutze & Wexler's (1996) AGREEMENT/TENSE OMISSION MODEL (ATOM) that the rate of non-nominative subjects with agreement-marked verb forms will be sufficiently low that such errors can reasonably be disregarded as noise in the data. A screening procedure identified five children who produced non-nominative subject er...

As it strives to imitate observably successful actions, imitation learning allows for a quick acquisition of proven behaviors. Recent work from psychology and robotics suggests that Bayesian probability theory provides a mathematical framework for imitation learning. In this paper, we investigate the use of Bayesian imitation learning in realizing more life-like computer game characters. Follow...

Deferred imitation of object-related actions (e.g., picking up a cloth with a set of tongs) was assessed in 3 enculturated juvenile orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) and 3 enculturated juvenile chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). For each task, animals were given 4 min to explore the objects (baseline), followed by a demonstration of the target behavior, and 10 min later, were re-presented the objects (de...

This study examined fMRI activation when perceivers either passively observed or observed and imitated matched or mismatched audiovisual ("McGurk") speech stimuli. Greater activation was observed in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) overall for imitation than for perception of audiovisual speech and for imitation of the McGurk-type mismatched stimuli than matched audiovisual stimuli. This unique...

There are currently two major approaches to robot teaching: explicitly tell the robot what to do (programming) or let the robot gure it out for itself (reinforcement learning/genetic algorithms). In this paper we give an overview of a new approach, in which the robot instead learns novel behaviours by observing the behaviour of others: imitation learning. We summarize the psychological backgrou...

In this paper we present a model of generative proto-imitation that replicates external signals without associating with objects, as in higher-level imitation. A mixed population of adults, that have fixed associations objectssignals, and infants, that do not have associations but imitate unconditionally, endowed with a kinship and interaction structure, allows infants to develop signal affinit...

Here I discuss: (1) historical precedents that have resulted in comparative psychologists accepting the two-action method as the "gold standard" in laboratory investigations of imitation learning, (2) evidence suggesting that the two-action procedure may not be adequate to answer questions concerning the role of imitation in the development of traditional behaviors of animals living in natural ...

Environmental sounds are very helpful in understanding environmental situations and in telling the approach of danger, and sound-imitation words (sound-related onomatopoeia) are important expressions to inform such sounds in human communication, especially in Japanese language. In this paper, we design a method to recognize sound-imitation words (SIWs) for environmental sounds. Critical issues ...

Learning by imitation is a powerful process for acquiring new knowledge, but there has been little research exploring imitation’s potential in the problem solving domain. Classical problem solving techniques tend to center around reinforcement learning, which requires significant trial-and-error learning to reach successful goals and problem solutions. Heuristics, hints, and reasoning by analog...