Imitation and thanx to Mike Acree

[From Bill Powers (2003.04.03.0809 MST)]

Waving each of these three signs, in turn, slowly over the crib
of about 3 months >old children (much as cooing parents and relatives
move their heads) he found that >not only the “full face”
pattern, but just the two eye pattern was greeted by the >child with
the facial expression we call a smile.

I presume that the mothers of these children were kept away from these
children until Dr. Bowlby had done his experiment.

A lot of “facts” are being tosses around in this discussion.
What kind of facts are they? Do I need to pay any attention to
them?

Best,

Bill P.

[From Dick Robertson,2003.04.03.2015CST]

Richard Marken wrote:

[From Rick Marken (2003.04.02.1230)]

> Bruce Nevin (2003.04.02 13:22 EST)--
>
> Rick Marken (2003.04.02.0800)--
>
> >I think that there is no question that imitation is based on observation.
>
> The question is, what does "based on observation" and "on the basis of
> observation" mean?

Good questions indeed.

I think it means monitoring the behavior ot (sic ?) the perceptual signal to be
imitated
and then acting so as to produce in actuality (when imitating what both imitatee
and imitator see in the same way) or imagination (when imitating what imitatee and
imitator see from different perspectives) the same behavior of the perceptual
signal.

I'd love to hear you say that in a different way. I couldn't follow that at all.

....
That is, indeed, the $64,000 question. I think the answer must ultimately be
based on empirical test This is because I think that the only way imitation can
be done by a PCT model is for the model to learn to control for various
perceptions that, as a side effect, produce the result one wants to imitate.

That makes sense, but see below

For
example, the only way I can know that the by producing a certain configuration of
tensions in my face that I am producing what someone else will see as a smile is
to have learned, either by looking in a mirror or by being told that what others
are seeing when I'm feeling those tensions is a smile. So now I know that by
producing that configuration of tensions I will be seen as smiling. The empirical
test would be to see how someone perceives what the result of controlling
particular lower level perceptions is. They could perceive the to be imitated
result in a a mirror, a verbal report or possibly other means. But at some point I
think they would have to have had some perceptual indication of what what they are
doing looks like to others.

Well, maybe not quite like that. The "first" smile might not be learned. John Bowlby,
the child development psychoanalyst set out in the '50s (I think) to test whether what
physicians had been calling the "gas smile" in babies was really a psuedo phenomenon
produced by gas pressure escaping into the oral cavity. He made three different
patterns on the kind of old fashioned circular fan that people used to use fan
themselves with in church etc. back before AC. On one he drew two circles about the
size the spacing of human eyes. On the second he drew a curved line like that on a
smiley. On the third he had the 2 circles plus the smiley line and a vertical line
between as in a stick figure face.

Waving each of these three signs, in turn, slowly over the crib of about 3 months old
children (much as cooing parents and relatives move their heads) he found that not
only the "full face" pattern, but just the two eye pattern was greeted by the child
with the facial expression we call a smile. This was in the days when Lorenz,
Tinbergen, and other ethologists were coming up with imprinting and such phenonena,
remember.

Now how to explain that as a "triggered" control action? Here's a speculation: That
there is a genetically determined reference signal in some kind of system "waiting"
for the two eye pattern. (Allow that various of these ethological phenoms have a
maturational time scale for their appearance.) Then what would be the error signal,
such that muscle tensions in the mouth(as you have proposed) would not suddenly be
matching the "right" pattern to make a smile? In the living baby during the early
weeks presumably all sorts of muscle tension patterns are being randomly executed (the
reorg system we suppose), just look at a kid in those weeks. There must be a genetic
RS for the right muscle pattern that is somehow activated by the two eye pattern.When
the two eye pattern is perceived the RS for the smile calls for it.

There is a lacuna in the above argument of course, Is the smile RS _evoked_ by the two
eye pattern? PCT wouldn't like that, it would seem like perception controlling
behavior. Is the random, mild, gentle, muscle action suddenly increasing error to
the "smiling system" that has been lurking in the background all along? We are used
to thinking in terms of the RS and the PS being the same PV modality. So the two eye
stimulus is not a perception the kid's mouth muscles are controlling, it is acting
like a behaviorist "cue." Oh horrors.

On another subject: Thanks to Mike for relaying that post by Rockwell. Very
interesting.

Best, Dick R

···

[From Rick Marken (2003.04.04.0800)]

Dick Robertson (2003.04.03.2015CST)--

Rick Marken (2003.04.02.1230) re: imitation

> I think it means monitoring the behavior ot (sic ?) the perceptual signal to be
> imitated and then acting so as to produce in actuality (when imitating what both
> imitatee and imitator see in the same way) or imagination (when imitating what
> imitatee and imitator see from different perspectives) the same behavior of the
> perceptual signal.

I'd love to hear you say that in a different way. I couldn't follow that at all.

OK. I think when I imitate I am watching someone do something (passive observation mode
in B:CP) and then trying to reproduce what they are doing (normal control mode in B:CP)
so that what I am doing will look to someone else like what the person's behavior I am
trying to reproduce looked like to me (imagination mode in B:CP, since I can't really see
what my behavior looks like to someone else) . So, for example, I look at a person's
facial expression (passive observation) and then produce a configuration of kinesthetic
perceptions in my face (normal control) that I believe will result in a facial expression
that looks to you like the facial expression I am imitating looked to me (imagination
mode).

I think this shows even an apparently "simple" example of imitation, such as imitation of
a facial expression, would be fairly difficult to model. I think it also shows that
imitation is a control phenomenon. In PCT I think it's control of a relationship between
an imagined perception (of what you look like to others) and an actual perception (in the
case of facial expressions, the kinesthetic configuration of tension perceptions in your
face).

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Senior Behavioral Scientist
The RAND Corporation
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E-mail: rmarken@rand.org