Imitation and Social Learning in Robots, Humans and Animals Behavioural, Social and Communicative Dimensions
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Introduction: the constructive interdisciplinary viewpoint for understanding mechanisms and models of imitation and social learning
- Part I Correspondence problems and mechanisms
- Part II Mirroring and ‘mind-reading’
- Part III What to imitate?
- Part IV Development and embodiment
- Part V Synchrony and turn-taking as communicative mechanisms
- Part VI Why imitate? – Motivations
- 16 Multiple motivations for imitation in infancy
- 17 The progress drive hypothesis: an interpretation of early imitation
- Part VII Social feedback
- Part VIII The ecological context
- Index
- Plate section
- References
17 - The progress drive hypothesis: an interpretation of early imitation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 December 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Introduction: the constructive interdisciplinary viewpoint for understanding mechanisms and models of imitation and social learning
- Part I Correspondence problems and mechanisms
- Part II Mirroring and ‘mind-reading’
- Part III What to imitate?
- Part IV Development and embodiment
- Part V Synchrony and turn-taking as communicative mechanisms
- Part VI Why imitate? – Motivations
- 16 Multiple motivations for imitation in infancy
- 17 The progress drive hypothesis: an interpretation of early imitation
- Part VII Social feedback
- Part VIII The ecological context
- Index
- Plate section
- References
Summary
Introduction
The functional role of early imitation has been discussed in a variety of contexts. Its role for the cognitive development of the child has been regularly emphasized since Piaget (1962). Its communicative function and its role for the development of social coordination know-how have also been put forward (Nadel, 2002). Early imitative capabilities could also be important in the process of identification with others helping the very young infant to take a ‘like-me stance’ (Meltzoff and Gopnick, 1993). Eventually, it has been argued that infants also engage in ‘self-imitation’ and that this process is crucial for the objectivation of themselves as distinct entities (Rochat, 2002). This multiplicity of approaches points to a consensus that early imitation is a crucial basic mechanism for the development of cognitive, social and communicative aspects of children's behaviour and even more generally for the construction of their awareness about themselves, others and the external environment. Despite its importance, a question regarding early imitation remains only partially answered: what pushes animals and infants to engage in imitative behaviour?
Early imitation seems to appear at an age when children do not discriminate clearly between themselves and others. It is argued that early imitation actually plays a role for identification with and discrimination from others. As a consequence, potential mechanisms for early imitation should not rely on the notions of self and others.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Imitation and Social Learning in Robots, Humans and AnimalsBehavioural, Social and Communicative Dimensions, pp. 361 - 378Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
References
, , , and (2001). Learning and communication in imitation: an autonomous robot perspective. IEEE Transaction on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part A: Systems and Humans, 31(5), 431–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (2004). Intrinsically motivated learning of hierarchical collections of skills. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL 2004).Google Scholar
(1996). Kinds of Minds: Towards an Understanding of Consciousness. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
(1986). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Heimann, M. (2002). Notes on individual differences and the assumed elusiveness of neonatal imitation. In and (eds.), The Imitative Mind: Development, Evolution and Brain Bases. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 74–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (2000). Learning predictive representations. Neurocomputing, 32–3, 785–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, X. and Weng, J. (2002). Novelty and reinforcement learning in the value system of developmental robots. In , , , and (eds.), Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems. Lund University Cognitive Studies, 94, 47–55.Google Scholar
Kaplan, F. and Oudeyer, P.-Y. (2003). Motivational principles for visual know-how development. In , , , , and (eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems. Lund University Cognitive Studies, 101, 73–80.Google Scholar
Kaplan, F. and Oudeyer, P.-Y. (2004). Maximizing learning progress: an internal reward system for development. In , , and (eds.), Embodied Artificial Intelligence, LNAI 3139. New York: Springer-Verlag, 259–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (2004). An emergent framework for self-motivation in developmental robotics. In International Conference on Development and Learning. San Diego: Salk Institute.Google Scholar
Meltzoff, A. and Gopnick, A. (1993). The role of imitation in understanding persons and developing a theory of mind. In and (eds.), Understanding Other Minds. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 335–66.Google Scholar
and (1977). Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates. Science, 198(4312), 74–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
and (1994). Social understanding at the end of the first year of life. Developmental Review, 14, 349–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nadel, J. (2002). Imitation and imitation recognition: functional use of imitation in preverbal infants and nonverbal children with autism. In and (eds.), The Imitative Mind: Development, Evolution and Brain Bases. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 42–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2005). The self-organization of speech sounds. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 233(3), 435–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oudeyer, P.-Y. and Kaplan, F. (2004). Intelligent adaptive curiosity: a source of self-development. In , , , , , and (eds.) Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Epigenetic Robotics, Lund University Cognitive Studies, vol. 117, 127–30.
Rochat, P. (2002). Ego function of early imitation. In and (eds.), The Imitative Mind: Development, Evolution and Brain Bases. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 85–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1977). Early interactive development in studies of mother-infant interaction. In Proceedings of Loch Lomonds Symposium. New York: Academic Press, 3–18.Google Scholar
(1991). Curious model-building control systems. In Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks. Singapore: IEEE, Vol. 2, 1458–63.Google Scholar
Schmidhuber, J. (2003). Exploring the predictable. In and (eds.), Advances in Evolutionary Computing: Theory and Applications. New York: Springer-Verlag, 579–612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steels, L. (2004). The autotelic principle. In , , and (eds.), Embodied Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 3139 of Lecture Notes in AI. New York: Springer Verlag, 231–42.Google Scholar
Thrun, S. (1995). Exploration in active learning. In (ed.), Handbook of Brain Science and Neural Networks. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
, and (1991). The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
(1978). The development of higher psychological processes. Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
, , , , , and (2001). Autonomous mental development by robots and animals. Science, 291, 599–600.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(1959). Motivation reconsidered: the concept of competence. Psychological review, 66, 297–333.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
- 9
- Cited by