Automatic imitation, in which one person's movement is affected by the observation of another person's movements, has been widely reported. However, it remains unclear how automatic imitation changes ...over a wide age range, particularly during childhood. In this study, we examined the differences in the tendency for automatic imitation between adults and children and the cross-sectional age-related changes in children aged 5-12 years, using a stimulus-response conflict paradigm. In this task, participants perform a choice-reactive finger movement corresponding to a given response stimulus while observing another participant's compatible or incompatible movement stimuli. The tendency for automatic imitation was assessed based on the reaction time, correct rate, and inverse efficiency score. The results showed that the degree of automatic imitation was weak until the children were 7 years old. Interestingly, our results show that the tendency for automatic imitation during childhood changed to an inverted U-shape, indicating nonlinear changes in automatic imitation during childhood.
Public Significance Statement
People tend to imitate the movements of others unconsciously. This tendency is considered to be a fundamental process in learning, empathy, and other interpersonal interactions. However, it is still unclear whether automatic imitation is innate or acquired, and if acquired, at what age it appears. We examined the difference in the tendency of automatic imitation between adults and children, and developmental changes in automatic imitation in children. The tendency toward automatic imitation in children aged 5-6 years was weak. In addition, between the ages of 7 and 12 years, the tendency for automatic imitation increased gradually and then weakened, approaching the tendency in adults. These results suggest that automatic imitation undergoes nonlinear developmental changes during childhood. We interpret our results as a consequence of the interaction between the representation of others' movements and inhibitory control. Our findings have important implications for understanding the developmental process of identifying oneself and others.
Individuals automatically imitate a wide range of different behaviors. Previous research suggests that imitation as a social process depends on the similarity between interaction partners. However, ...some of the experiments supporting this notion could not be replicated and all of the supporting experiments manipulated not only similarity between actor and observer, but also other features. Thus, the existing evidence leaves open whether similarity as such moderates automatic imitation. To directly test the similarity account, in four experiments, we manipulated participants' focus on similarities or differences while holding the stimulus material constant. In Experiment 1, we presented participants with a hand and let them either focus on similarities, differences, or neutral aspects between their own hand and the other person's hand. The results indicate that focusing on similarities increased perceived similarity between the own and the other person's hand. In Experiments 2 to 4, we tested the hypothesis that focusing on similarities, as compared with differences, increases automatic imitation. Experiment 2 tested the basic effect and found support for our prediction. Experiment 3 and 4 replicated this finding with higher-powered samples. Exploratory investigations further suggest that it is a focus on differences that decreases automatic imitation, and not a focus on similarities that increases automatic imitation. Theoretical implications and future directions are discussed.
Research Summary: We argue that because charisma and narcissism represent widely held prototypes of effective and ineffective forms of leadership, respectively, the likelihood that a focal firm will ...imitate the practices of its peer firms is affected by these peer firms' CEO characteristics. We theorize that peer firm CEO charisma enhances the focal firm's imitation of peer firms' behaviors, while peer firm CEO narcissism diminishes it. We further posit that the uncertainty of the context affects these imitation processes: industry dynamism and prior experience in a given strategic domain, respectively, strengthens and dampens focal firms' susceptibility to these peer CEOs' attributes. We test and find support for these ideas using a longitudinal sample of Fortune 500 firms in two distinct domains, corporate strategy and corporate social responsibility. Managerial Summary: When companies are uncertain about the costs and benefits of strategic actions this may lead them to imitate the actions of peer companies. But given the uncertainty, the challenge for executives is: which companies to emulate and which to ignore? In a sample of Fortune 500 companies, we find that the charisma or narcissism of a peer company's CEO positively or negatively influences, respectively, the degree to which the peer company's strategic actions are imitated. We reason that this is because these particular CEO attributes are widely believed to drive leadership effectiveness or ineffectiveness, respectively. We also find that the effects of these CEO characteristics on imitation are stronger in dynamic industry environments and weaker for companies that already have experience with the given strategy.
When threatened with ostracism, children attempt to strengthen social relationships by engaging in affiliative behaviors such as imitation. We investigated whether an experience of ostracism ...influenced the extent to which children imitated a partner's language use. In two experiments, 7- to 12-year-old children either experienced ostracism or did not experience ostracism in a virtual ball-throwing game before playing a picture-matching game with a partner. We measured children's tendency to imitate, or align with, their partner's language choices during the picture-matching game. Children showed a strong tendency to spontaneously align with their partner's lexical and grammatical choices. Crucially, their likelihood of lexical alignment was modulated by whether they had experienced ostracism. We found no effect of ostracism on syntactic alignment. These findings offer the first demonstration that ostracism selectively influences children's language use. They highlight the role of social-affective factors in children's communicative development, and show that the link between ostracism and imitation is broadly based, and extends beyond motor behaviors to the domain of language.
In this paper, a new imitation learning algorithm is proposed based on the Restored Action Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning (RAGAIL) from observation. An action policy is trained to move a ...robot manipulator similar to a demonstrator’s behavior by using the restored action from state-only demonstration. To imitate the demonstrator, the trajectory is generated by Recurrent Generative Adversarial Networks (RGAN), and the action is restored from the output of the tracking controller constructed by the state and the generated target trajectory. The proposed imitation learning algorithm is not required to access the demonstrator’s action (internal control signal such as force/torque command) and provides better learning performances. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated through the experimental results of the robot manipulator.
•A new generative adversarial imitation learning is proposed with the restored action.•The state of the demonstration and the recurrent state are used to generate the target trajectory.•The experimental results were obtained by a drawing task on a 7 degree of freedom (DOF) Sawyer robot.
Research Summary
A market entrant often challenges the incumbent using creative imitation: The entrant creatively combines imitated aspects of the original with its own innovative characteristics to ...create a distinct offering. Using lab and field experiments to examine creative imitation in China, we find the effects of creative imitations on the originals depend on the creative imitation's quality. We explore the underlying mechanisms, and show that including a low‐quality creative imitation in the retail choice set increases satisfaction with and choice of the original, while a moderate‐quality creative imitation does the opposite. Moreover, creative imitation affects consumers' satisfaction with the original by influencing whether their experience with the original verifies their expectations. Our paper reveals creative imitation effects to help incumbent firms effectively address them.
Managerial Summary
When the incumbent is challenged by an entrant using creative imitation, consumers may react differently to the incumbent, and understanding consumers' reactions allows the incumbent to make better strategic decisions about how to address the challenge. Using lab and field experiments, we investigate creative imitations with two quality levels common in our empirical context, low quality and moderate quality, and examine how and why they differentially affect the originals. We find the presence of a low‐quality creative imitation actually increased choice of the original by enhancing consumers' satisfaction with it, while a moderate‐quality creative imitation reduced choice of the original by undermining satisfaction with it. Our research suggests the incumbent should address moderate‐quality creative imitations' challenges to customer satisfaction, while temporarily tolerating low‐quality creative imitations.
•Relationships among exploitative and exploratory learning, imitation, innovation, and sustained competitive advantage.•Exploitative learning relates to imitation and innovation, and the effect is ...stronger on imitation than on innovation.•Exploratory learning relates to imitation and innovation, and the effect is stronger on innovation than on imitation.•Imitation and innovation relate to sustained competitive advantage, and the effect is stronger on innovation than imitation.
Using the theory of organizational learning and innovation, this study explores the positive effects of exploitative and exploratory learning on imitation strategy and innovation strategy and shows when these effects are strongest. This study also explores the positive effects of imitation strategy and innovation strategy on sustained competitive advantage and shows when these effects are strongest. The proposed theoretical model was tested on a cross-sectional data sample collected from industrial companies in South Korea. Analysis was conducted through component-based partial least squares (PLS) path modeling methodology. The results support the proposed hypotheses. The results confirm the complementary positive effects of exploitative and exploratory learning on both imitation strategy and innovation strategy. These effects in turn promote the achievement of sustained competitive advantages. Finally, the findings of the study, theoretical contributions, managerial contributions, limitations, and further work are discussed.
Researchers commonly use puppets in development science. Amongst other things, puppets are employed to reduce social hierarchies between child participants and adult experimenters akin to peer ...interactions. However, it remains controversial whether children treat puppets like real‐world social partners in these settings. This study investigated children's imitation of causally irrelevant actions (i.e., over‐imitation) performed by puppet, adult, or child models. Seventy‐two German children (AgeRange = 4.6–6.5 years; 36 girls) from urban, socioeconomically diverse backgrounds observed a model retrieving stickers from reward containers. The model performed causally irrelevant actions either in contact with the reward container or not. Children were more likely to over‐imitate adults’ and peers’ actions as compared to puppets’ actions. Across models, they copied contact actions more than no‐contact actions. While children imitate causally irrelevant actions from puppet models to some extent, their social learning from puppets does not necessarily match their social learning from real‐world social agents, such as children or adults.
Research Highlights
We examined children's over‐imitation from adult, child, and puppet models to validate puppetry as an approach to simulate non‐hierarchical interactions.
Children imitated adults and child models at slightly higher rates than puppets.
This effect was present regardless of whether the irrelevant actions involved physical contact to the reward container or not.
In our study children's social learning from puppets does not match their social learning from human models.
This study assessed children's overimitation of puppets, adults, and child models in a mock video call to test puppetry in its application to simulate peers within experimental research. Children overimitated all models, but they copied actions from puppets slightly less than adults and child models. Accordingly, this study indicates that using puppets as stand‐ins for peers may come at a cost to the generalizability of research findings.
Theater is a renewed art until this moment, and it does not stray from its components from life and its spaces in general, but rather is derived from them according to characteristics and directions ...intended to differ based on finding other, more effective solutions, Therefore, the research entitled (Extractive treatments of the space between tradition and contrast in contemporary theater) consists of four chapters. The first chapter came under the title (the methodological framework). Where he dealt with the research problem and then the importance of the research and the goal of the research as well as the objective, temporal and spatial limits of the research, In addition to defining the terminology and then finding the procedural term that the researcher deduced through his reading of the sources, references and opinions he reached. As for the second chapter, entitled (Theoretical Framework), the researcher divided this chapter into the following sections:
The first topic: the concept of space in theatrical performance.
The second topic: Tradition and contrast in contemporary theatrical performance.
Then the previous studies and the results of the theoretical framework of indicators to conclude that chapter. As for the third chapter, entitled (Research Procedures), the researcher dealt with: the research community - the research sample - the research method - the research tools - the sample analysis entitled (women's playing). With regard to the fourth chapter, which is entitled (Conclusions and Conclusions), the researcher reached the results and then identified the conclusions he reached, and then put forward the proposals and recommendations, then a list of sources and references
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