Does human imitate successful behaviors immediately?

The emergence and abundance of cooperation in animal and human societies is a challenging puzzle to evolutionary biology. Over the past decades, various mechanisms have been suggested which are capable of supporting cooperation. Imitation dynamics, however, are the most representative microscopic rules of human behaviors on studying these mechanisms. Their standard procedure is to choose the agent to imitate at random from the population. In the spatial version this means a random agent from the neighborhood. Hence, imitation rules do not include the possibility to explore the available strategies, and then they have the possibility to reach a homogeneous state rapidly when the population size is small. To prevent evolution stopping, theorists allow for random mutations in addition to the imitation dynamics. Consequently, if the microscopic rules involve both imitation and mutation, the frequency of agents switching to the more successful strategy must be higher than that of them transiting to the same target strategy via mutation dynamics. Here we show experimentally that the frequency of switching to successful strategy approximates to that of mutating to the same strategy. This suggests that imitation might play an insignificant role on the behaviors of human decision making. In addition, our experiments show that the probabilities of agents mutating to different target strategies are significantly distinct. The actual mutation theories cannot give us an appropriate explanation to the experimental results. Hence, we argue that the mutation dynamics might have evolved for other reasons

Mimicry and automatic imitation are not correlated

It is widely known that individuals have a tendency to imitate each other. However, different psychological disciplines assess imitation in different manners. While social psychologists assess mimicry by means of action observation, cognitive psychologists assess automatic imitation with reaction time based measures on a trial-by-trial basis. Although these methods differ in crucial methodological aspects, both phenomena are assumed to rely on similar underlying mechanisms. This raises the fundamental question whether mimicry and automatic imitation are actually correlated. In the present research we assessed both phenomena and did not find a meaningful correlation. Moreover, personality traits such as empathy, autism traits, and traits related to self- versus other-focus did not correlate with mimicry or automatic imitation either. Theoretical implications are discussed

Imitation and Cooperation in Different Helping Games

The relation between imitation and cooperation in evolutionary settings presents complex aspects. From one hand, in any environment where egoists are favored over cooperators by selection processes, imitation should lead to a further spreading of the former ones due to the combined processes of individual selection and replication of successful behaviors. On the other hand, if cooperators succeed in forming clusters of mutual helping individuals, imitation may have a positive effect on cooperation by further reproducing this locally dominant behavior. This paper explores the relationship between imitation and cooperation by mean of a simulation model based on two different Helping games. Our model shows that different imitation mechanisms can favor the spreading of cooperation under a wide range of conditions. Moreover, the interplay of imitation and other factors — e.g. the possibility of performing “conditional associations” strategies — can further foster the success of cooperative agents.Imitation, Evolution of Cooperation, Helping Game, Indirect Reciprocity

Hand to mouth: automatic imitation across effector systems

The effector-specificity of automatic imitation was investigated using a stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) procedure in which participants were required to make an open or a close response with either their hand or their mouth. The correct response for each trial was indicated by a pair of letters, and each of these imperative stimuli was accompanied by task-irrelevant action images depicting a hand or mouth opening or closing. Relative to the response, the irrelevant stimulus was either movement compatible or movement incompatible, and either effector compatible or effector incompatible. A movement compatibility effect was observed for both hand and mouth responses. These movement compatibility effects were present when the irrelevant stimulus was effector compatible and when it was effector incompatible, but they were smaller when the irrelevant stimulus and response effectors were incompatible. These findings, which are consistent with the associative sequence learning model of imitation, indicate that automatic imitation is partially effector-specific, and therefore that the effector specificity of intentional and instructed imitation reflects, at least in part, the nature of the mechanisms that mediate visuomotor translation for imitation

Social learning in a multi-agent system

In a persistent multi-agent system, it should be possible for new agents to benefit from the accumulated learning of more experienced agents. Parallel reasoning can be applied to the case of newborn animals, and thus the biological literature on social learning may aid in the construction of effective multi-agent systems. Biologists have looked at both the functions of social learning and the mechanisms that enable it. Many researchers have focused on the cognitively complex mechanism of imitation; we will also consider a range of simpler mechanisms that could more easily be implemented in robotic or software agents. Research in artificial life shows that complex global phenomena can arise from simple local rules. Similarly, complex information sharing at the system level may result from quite simple individual learning rules. We demonstrate in simulation that simple mechanisms can outperform imitation in a multi-agent system, and that the effectiveness of any social learning strategy will depend on the agents' environment. Our simple mechanisms have obvious advantages in terms of robustness and design costs

Innovation and Imitation with and without Intellectual Property Rights

An extensive empirical literature indicates that returns from innovation are appropriated primarily via mechanisms other than formal intellectual property rights -- and that `imitation' is itself a costly activity. However most theory assumes the pure nonrivalry of `ideas' with its implication that, in the absence of intellectual property, innovation (and welfare) is zero. This paper introduces a formal model of innovation based on imperfect competition in which imitation is costly and an innovator has a first-mover advantage. Without intellectual property, a significant amount of innovation still occurs and welfare may actually be higher than with intellectual property.Innovation; Imperfect Competition; Intellectual Property; Imitation

Social learning mechanisms compared in a simple environment

Social learning can be adaptive, but little is known about the underlying mechanisms. Many researchers have focused on imitation but this may have led to simpler mechanisms being underestimated. We demonstrate in simulation that imitative learning is not always the best strategy for a group-living animal, and that the effectiveness of any such strategy will depend on details of the environment and the animal's lifestyle. We show that observations of behavioural convergence or "traditions" might suggest effective social learning, but are meaningless considered alone

The Effects of Information and Interactions on Contagion Processes

The network literature commonly neglects the importance of a clear distinction between interactions and information exchanges. Although convenient, this oversight is not innocuous and may lead to erroneous conclusions when looking at mechanisms such as contagion processes. We use simulation methods and conduct a systematic analysis of the implications of such omission. We show that the lack of distinction between information and interaction structures is not without consequences. More precisely, when agents use a myopic best response, only information exchanges matter and interactions can be ignored. With imitation however, both information and interactions play important yet different roles in contagion.contagion, networks, coordination games, scale-free, small-worlds, best response, imitation

Kinematic Measures of Imitation Fidelity in Primary School Children

We sought to develop a method for measuring imitation accuracy objectively in primary school children. Children imitated a model drawing shapes on the same computer-tablet interface they saw used in video clips, allowing kinematics of model and observers' actions to be directly compared. Imitation accuracy was reported as a correlation reflecting the statistical dependency between values of the model's and participant's sets of actions, or as a mean absolute difference between them. Children showed consistent improvement in imitation accuracy across middle childhood. They appeared to rationalize the demands of the task by remembering duration and size of action, which enabled them to reenact speed through motor-planning mechanisms. Kinematic measures may provide a window into the cognitive mechanisms involved in imitation