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Imitation is a behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's behavior. Imitation is also a form of that leads to the "development of traditions, and ultimately our culture. It allows for the transfer of information between individuals and down generations without the need for genetic inheritance." The word imitation can be applied in many contexts, ranging from animal training to politics. The term generally refers to conscious behavior; subconscious imitation is termed mirroring.
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A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an organism acts and when the organism observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. Mirror neurons are not always physiologically distinct from other types of neurons in the brain; their main differentiating factor is their response patterns. By this definition, such neurons have been directly observed in humans and primate species, and in birds.
Social neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding the relationship between social experiences and biological systems. Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather than solitary. As such, Homo sapiens create emergent organizations beyond the individual—structures that range from dyads, families, and groups to cities, civilizations, and cultures. In this regard, studies indicate that various social influences, including life events, poverty, unemployment and loneliness can influence health related biomarkers. The term "social neuroscience" can be traced to a publication entitled "Social Neuroscience Bulletin" which was published quarterly between 1988 and 1994. The term was subsequently popularized in an article by John Cacioppo and Gary Berntson, published in the American Psychologist in 1992. Cacioppo and Berntson are considered as the legitimate fathers of social neuroscience. Still a young field, social neuroscience is closely related to personality neuroscience, affective neuroscience and cognitive neuroscience, focusing on how the brain mediates social interactions. The biological underpinnings of social cognition are investigated in social cognitive neuroscience.
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Wolfgang Prinz is a German cognitive psychologist. He is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, and an internationally recognized expert in experimental psychology, cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind. He is the founder of the common coding theory between perception and action that has a significant impact in cognitive neuroscience and social cognition.
The sense of agency (SA), or sense of control, is the subjective awareness of initiating, executing, and controlling one's own volitional actions in the world. It is the pre-reflective awareness or implicit sense that it is I who is executing bodily movement(s) or thinking thoughts. In non-pathological experience, the SA is tightly integrated with one's "sense of ownership" (SO), which is the pre-reflective awareness or implicit sense that one is the owner of an action, movement or thought. If someone else were to move your arm you would certainly have sensed that it were your arm that moved and thus a sense of ownership (SO) for that movement. However, you would not have felt that you were the author of the movement; you would not have a sense of agency (SA).
The study of memory incorporates research methodologies from neuropsychology, human development and animal testing using a wide range of species. The complex phenomenon of memory is explored by combining evidence from many areas of research. New technologies, experimental methods and animal experimentation have led to an increased understanding of the workings of memory.
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Interaction theory (IT) is an approach to questions about social cognition, or how one understands other people, that focuses on bodily behaviors and environmental contexts rather than on mental processes. IT argues against two other contemporary approaches to social cognition, namely theory theory (TT) and simulation theory (ST). For TT and ST, the primary way of understanding others is by means of ‘mindreading’ or ‘mentalizing’ – processes that depend on either theoretical inference from folk psychology, or simulation. In contrast, for IT, the minds of others are understood primarily through our embodied interactive relations. IT draws on interdisciplinary studies and appeals to evidence developed in developmental psychology, phenomenology, and neuroscience.
The eye-contact effect is a psychological phenomenon in human selective attention and cognition. It is the effect that the perception of eye contact with another human face has on certain mechanisms in the brain. This contact has been shown to increase activation in certain areas of what has been termed the ‘social brain’. This social brain network processes social information as the face, theory of mind, empathy, and goal-directedness.
References
- ↑ Meltzoff, A.N. and Moore, M.K. (1977). "Imitation of Facial and Manual Gestures by Human Neonates", Science, 198, 75-78.
- ↑ Meltzoff, A.N. and Moore, M.K. (1983). "Newborn Infants Imitate Adult Facial Gestures", Child Development, 54, 702-709.
- ↑ Anisfeld, M. (1996). "Only Tongue Protrusion Modelling is Matched by Neonates", Developmental Review, 16, 149-161.
- ↑ Jones, S.S. (2007). "Imitation in Infancy: the Development of Mimicry", Psychological Science, 18, 593-599.
- ↑ Meltzoff, A.N., & Borton, R.W. (1979). "Intermodal matching by human neonates". Nature, 282, 403-404.
- ↑ Meltzoff, A.N., & Moore, M.K. (1994). "Imitation, memory, and the representation of persons". Infant Behavior and Development, 17, 83-99.
- ↑ Toth, Karen, Munson, Jeffrey, Meltzoff, Andrew N. and Dawson, Geraldine (2006). "Early Predictors of Communication Development in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Joint Attention, Imitation, and Toy Play", J Autism Dev Disord, 36:993–1005
- ↑ Meltzoff, A. N. (2007). The 'like me' framework for recognizing and becoming an intentional agent. Acta Psychologica, 124 26–43.
- ↑ Decety, J., Chaminade, T., Grèzes J., & Meltzoff, A.N. (2002). A PET exploration of the neural mechanisms involved in reciprocal imitation. NeuroImage, 15, 265-272.,
- ↑ Chaminade, T., Meltzoff, A.N., & Decety, J. (2005). An fMRI study of imitation: Action representation and body schema. Neuropsychologia, 43, 115-127.
- ↑ Jackson, P.L., Meltzoff, A.N., & Decety, J. (2006). An fMRI study of the effect of perspective taking on imitation. NeuroImage, 31, 429-439.
- ↑ Jackson, P.L., Meltzoff, A.N., & Decety, J. (2005). How do we perceive the pain of others: A window into the neural processes involved in empathy. NeuroImage, 24, 771-779.
- ↑ Jackson, P.L., Brunet, E., Meltzoff, A.N., & Decety, J. (2006). "Empathy examined through the neural mechanisms involved in imagining how I feel versus how you feel pain". Neuropsychologia, 44, 752-761.
- ↑ Meltzoff, A.N., & Brooks, R. (2007). "Eyes Wide Shut: The Importance of Eyes in Infant Gaze-Following and Understanding Other Minds", In R. Flom, K. Lee, & D. Muir (Eds.), Gaze following: Its development and significance (pp. 217-241). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
- ↑ Meltzoff, Andrew N. (2007). "'Like me': a foundation for social cognition", Developmental Science 10:1, pp 126–134.
- ↑ "Gruppe 3: Idéfag" (in Norwegian). Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Archived from the original on 9 January 2015. Retrieved 16 January 2011.
- ↑ "Kurt-Koffka-Medaille". Giessen University. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
