Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 17:26:05 +0200
From: Mario Vaneechoutte <Mario.Vaneechoutte@rug.ac.be>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Associative learning versus imitation - JoM Article
Bill Benzon wrote:
> Mario Vaneechoutte wrote:
>
> > Bill Benzon wrote:
> >
> > > Mario Vaneechoutte wrote:
> > >
> > > > Let us agree that humans are much better in this. Then the question boils down
> > > > to: from what age on do babies imitate visually observable events?
> > >
> > > >From birth. I don't have references immediately at hand, but the observations are
> > > quite well-known (Metzler is the name to search for). Look at a neonate and stick
> > > our your tongue or flutter your eyelashes. She'll imitate you.
> >
> > Thanks, Bill. References are what we need here, because I would have difficulties in
> > understanding this. Can someone help?
>
> Well, when I get home I can dig up some references.
>
> As for understanding it; yes it's pretty remarkable. But this work is now 20 years old and
> I'm not aware of any serious doubt about the observations themselves. Still, if you think
> of the classic work on frog/toad vision and visual aiming -- zapping flies out of the air
> with the tongue -- this seems to be roughly that order of task. And the "frog/toad"
> regions of the human brain are operative at birth, though the cerebral cortex is
> uninsulated mush.
>
> >
> > Do we have the same interpretation problems than as we have with animals with regard to
> > the question whether this is imitation or not?
>
> I'm not sure what the question is. It was raised on another list by Jean Mandler
> (developmental psych, U of California, San Diego) but she never elaborated. A
> philosphically minded person might wonder whether or not the neonate INTENDED imitation.
No, intentionality is not the problem. Simply: if this imitation by babies is a fact, how comes
they can, while animals are thought not.
With regard to Bruce Howlett's remarks: I tend to agree that in social animals, many
behavioural rules have to be learned (like in the example of the male dog that never lifted a
leg to pee because it was raised amidst female dogs). Growls mean only what they mean because
pups learn readily that growls are usually associated with unpleasant experiences (like bites).
So we could say that we have culture here, even in case this is not caused by imitation, but by
instruction.
>
>
> Bill B
>
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-- Mario Vaneechoutte Department Clinical Chemistry, Microbiology & Immunology University Hospital De Pintelaan 185 9000 GENT Belgium Phone: +32 9 240 36 92 Fax: +32 9 240 36 59 E-mail: Mario.Vaneechoutte@rug.ac.beJ. Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/
The memetic origin of language: humans as musical primates http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/1998/vol2/vaneechoutte_m&skoyles_jr.html
=============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit