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The Swedish Nobel prize winner Harry Martinsson is introduced in this paper, and his epic science fiction poem Aniara is presented. Mima, a miraculous accessor and transmitter of information from all over the universe, is juxtaposed to Sandor Ferenczi's concept of mimicry and Wittgenstein's views on aspect-seeing. It is proposed that the Mima can be seen as a metaphor for the infant mind, having creative mimetic faculties. The single most important realm of mimicry and auto-plastic adaptation is basic trust and empathy. Mimicry is thus suggested to be our deepest and most extensive way of knowing the other as well as ourself, although without cognitive structure. It is basic to Wittgenstein's ‘aspect-seeing’, that is immediately seeing another person's behaviour as expressive of a human mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A commentary on Eugenio Gaddini's paper ‘On imitation’ is given, based on a close reading, involving a detailed description and analysis of its main concepts and themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unrealistic optimism bias appears when a person perceives oneself – in comparison to peers – as less at risk from threats. This bias has been widely reported and the consequences are clear: it puts one's health in danger. The existing body of literature proposes egocentrism as a mechanism leading to a reduction in this bias. The present paper tests a novel mechanism orienting a person toward others – thus linked with egocentrism – i.e., mimicry. Results showed directly opposing effects: mimicry induced a stronger tendency to perceive oneself as less threatened. This result is not only surprising but especially alarming since mimicry may be used in patient-doctor dialogue which may backfire, leading to resistance to medical recommendations provided by the doctor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typographic mimicry is the wrapping of writing in a "foreign dress," i.e. the use of typefaces in which one's script (e.g. Latin) is made to visually resemble a different script (e.g. Chinese) with the goal of evoking associations with a "foreign" culture. First, this paper addresses the formal aspects of this practice, specifically the choice of visual features to be mimicked. The core part then focuses on typographic mimicry as a social practice and includes a discussion of both the typographic knowledge that different actors – both lay and expert producers and recipients – must apply to establish and recognise the associated cultural indexicality and the typographic ideologies (i.e. beliefs and attitudes) these actors hold. The central question being investigated is how typographic mimicry is discursively negotiated. An exemplary metapragmatic discourse analysis of online reactions to a food ad and comments to two articles covering the topic catered at readers with different knowledge backgrounds highlights that typographic mimicry is not a "neutral" practice. It shows that central aspects being debated are the (re)appropriation of cultural stereotypes by users both outside and within the respective cultures and the related question of whether using typographic mimicry is generally (in)appropriate (or even racist). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to develop a constructive dialogue between moral bioenhancement and Reformed theology of sanctification. According to Reformed theology, human beings are first sanctified by God objectively (passive sanctification) and consequently seek subjectively for their own growth in moral life (active sanctification). Moral bioenhancement and sanctification, thus, share a commonality, that is, emphasizing moral betterment. As such, to the extent that passive sanctification is not obliterated but rather prioritized, moral bioenhancement can be viewed as a consequence of a good work performed freely by the sanctified person to seek for moral growth in the imitation of Christ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate which approach to generate eye behaviors using an android robot makes what impressions on humans and clarify which are the important factors for attractive eye behaviors. Thus, we evaluate the human impression of eye behaviors displayed by an android robot while talking to a human by comparing the motions generated by the two approaches. In the first approach, we develop a method to imitate human eye behavior obtained from eye trackers. In the second approach, we control the eye direction, eye-contact duration, and eyeblinks based on the findings of human eye behavior in psychology and cognitive research. In the experiments, we asked male and female subjects to evaluate their impression by comparing the eye behaviors with an android that controls the eye-contact duration and eyeblinks by editing the imitation parameters or the rule-based behavior. In the experiments, we asked subjects to evaluate their impression of different eye behaviors displayed by an android. The eye behaviors were generated by modifying the imitation parameters or the rule-based behavior, which resulted in different eye-contact duration and eyeblink duration and timing. From the results, we found that (1) the imitation and rule-based behaviors showed no difference in terms of human-likeness, (2) the 3-second eye contact obtained better scores regardless of the imitation or rule-based eye behavior, (3) the subjects might regard the long eyeblinks as voluntary eyeblinks, with the intention to break eye contact, and (4) female subjects preferred short eyeblinks rather than long ones and considered that short eyeblinks might be one of the keys to making eye contact more suitable, in contrast to male subjects who preferred long eyeblinks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses three extraordinary imitations from India the obverses of which are based on Roman issues while the reverses imitate Sasanian coins. These specimens are exceptional and puzzling for two reasons: the unique combination of obverse and reverse designs and the absence of genuine issues which could have been used as their reverse prototypes among finds from the territories they were made and used in. Employing the object biography paradigm for investigating the imitations provides a dynamic perspective on objects actively involved in social relationships. The role of those imitations in understanding the use of Sasanian coins in the Indian Ocean trade will be discussed as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the Visual Sort and Rate (VSR) method which can be utilized for perceptual rating of sound stimuli. The method facilitates comparing similar stimuli, thus making the rank ordering of the stimuli easier. To examine the potential benefits of the method, it was compared with two other methods for perceptual rating of audio stimuli. The first method was a straightforward computer-based implementation of a visual analogue scale (VAS) allowing multiple playbacks and re-play of previously heard stimuli (C-VAS). The second method utilized a VAS where the responses were given on paper (P-VAS). The three methods were compared by using two sets of stimuli. The first set was a synthetically generated series of stimuli mimicking the vowel /a/ with different spectral tilts. In this test, a single parameter was rated. The second set of stimuli was a naturally spoken voice. For this set of stimuli three parameters were rated. Results show that the VSR method gave better reliability of the subjects' ratings in the single-parameter tests: Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients were significantly higher for the VSR method than for the other methods. For the multi-parameter, intra-subject test, significantly higher Pearson correlation coefficients were found for the VSR method than for the VAS on paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we combine a philosophical theoretical analysis with human movement science empirical studies, in order to provide a better understanding of the possible links between free play and creativity. We deal in particular with some dialectical dynamics inherent to free play: the relation between rules and freedom, spontaneity which often leads to imitation, the presence of a purpose as a necessary element to makes novelty creative, innovation as an essential part of adaptive processes. We remark the topic into a developmental perspective including the role of play tutoring. We advocate an interdisciplinary criticism for approaching the paradigm of free play and creativity. Our aim is to show that free play in itself does not always and necessarily imply creativity, but can easily foster it in the presence of certain specific conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an expansion of Brandchaft's notion of pathological accommodation. In a pathological accommodation a child is exposed to immutable primary caretakers unable to perceive the child's subjectivity while at the same time demanding that the child meet the needs of the caretakers. As a result, the child abandons much of his desires and striving in order to maintain the needed ties to the caretakers. I am introducing both the idea of pathological non-accommodation and the subjective importance of both accommodation and non-accommodation in their non-pathological forms. In pathological non-accommodation the child attempts a precocious self-sufficiency overplaying their separateness and distinctness at the expense of taking in the emotionally organized help, information and nurturance they need to thrive in the world. Healthy accommodation and non-accommodation entail having good enough caretakers promoting a child's developing emotionally organized judgments regarding their comforts and discomforts around the vast array of playful and worked on interactions within the child's emotional surround. Examples of early healthy accommodations are turn taking, imitation and other forms of learning. Examples of early healthy non-accommodation are averting one's gaze, crying, displaying displeasure, learning to say "no" and more complex oppositional behavior as development proceeds. A case example is given of work with a patient who combines both pathological non-accommodation and pathological accommodation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yet Dancy would still reject any assimilation of making a rational decision to deriving a logical "must": what Aristotle has really identified is a good reason that justifies an action as an instance of a general practice, and so sufficiently explains its occurrence. A famous passage in Aristotle runs as follows I need a covering. I conclude that Dancy's contention that (not always, but focally) action is the rational agent's primary response to practical reasons has two merits that may not be independent of each other: it is anticipated by Aristotle, and it is immune to certain common objections. 2 This paper is part of the book symposium on Jonathan Dancy's I Practical Shape: A Theory of Practical Reasoning i (Oxford University Press, 2018) guest edited by Constantine Sandis. [Extracted from the article]

This paper provides an introduction to the sociology of Gabriel Tarde and to the papers in this special issue. The first part of the paper examines how Tarde conceived of the relations between sociology and the natural sciences, including astronomy and physical geography. It also discusses Tarde's account of the significance and value of statistics and archaeology as sociological methods. The second part of the paper focuses on the importance of the concepts of imitation and suggestion in Tarde's economic psychology, and discusses the contemporary relevance of his work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the local stability of the steady slate of the generalized Lai (1995) model, i.e. the Shimizu and Okamoto (2004) model. Lai is a modified version of Grossman and Helpman (1991a, 1991b: Ch. 11) by assuming that there are two types of labour: skilled and unskilled labours. Shimizu and Okamoto (2004) generalize the Lai model by assuming that Southern knowledge stock depends not only on Southern cumulative experience but also on the number of products the North manufactures. This paper shows that the stability of steady state in the generalized Lai model has (he saddle point properly. Thus, this paper also establishes the stability of the Grossman and Helpman (1991a, 199lb: Ch. 11) model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imitation is an important learning mechanism of widespread utility and common occurrence. This article presents a theory and working computational model of the detailed mechanisms of imitation. The model is in the restricted domain of the learning of pencil and paper procedures. The task that is modelled is of a teacher demonstrating the steps of a procedure, such as long division to a student by means of one or more examples. Such a task can be learned by an imitation-learning mechanism, but the mechanism has a much wider range of application. Imitation is treated as a four-stage process: the events performed by the teacher are segmented by the learner; the events are encoded and explained in terms of spatial relations between objects; repeated patterns in the events are recognized; and finally, different examples are merged together. This model is implemented as a computer program learning algorithms from worked examples (LAWE). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the seminal conceptualisation and operationalisation studies of the early 1990s, research into market orientation has blossomed. Studies abound of the plethora of antecedents and the myriad of potential consequences. However, although a greater understanding of the barriers and performance implications of market orientation has been developed, inexplicably empirical research into management approaches to developing market orientation is neglected. With the exception of a limited number of management prescriptions and an even smaller number of conceptual contributions, little is known of the different approaches, strategies or tactics management employs to improve market orientation. The current study is designed to explore these issues and to provide empirical insights into the nature of differences in management approaches. After reviewing relevant literature and describing the methods employed, the results of twelve case studies involving over 260 field interviews are presented. The results indicate that management approaches to developing market orientation differ along five main dimensions, with each firm tending to stress one of these emphases. After defining and describing the main characteristics of these differences in emphasis, the paper concludes with implications for theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We contribute to the economic literature on patent litigation by taking a new perspective. In the past, scholars mostly focused on specific litigation cases at the patent level and related technological characteristics to the event of litigation. However, observing intellectual property (IP) disputes suggests that not only technological characteristics may trigger litigation suits, but also the market positions of firms, and that firms dispute not only over single patents but often over portfolios. This paper examines the occurrence of IP litigation cases in Belgian firms using the 2013 Community Innovation Survey with supplemental information on IP litigation and patent portfolios. The rich survey information regarding firms' general innovation strategies enables us to introduce market-related variables such as sales with new products, as well as sales based mainly on imitation and incremental innovation. Our results indicate that when controlling for firms' IP portfolios, the composition of sales in terms of innovation and imitation has additional explanatory power regarding litigation propensities. Firms with high sales from innovations are more likely to become plaintiffs in court. Contrastingly, firms with high sales from incremental innovation and imitation are more likely to become defendants in court and, moreover, are more likely to negotiate settlements outside of court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1990s Multilateral Development Banks created accountability mechanisms (AMs) that allowed people affected by development projects redress. Currently undertheorized, this paper examines how and why the Asian Development Bank (ADB) created an AM, and whether the AM serves its purpose to hold the ADB to account and to provide ‘fair hearing of the views of the affected group’. This article argues that the ADB created anewAM because of institutional isomorphism,borrowingthe idea of the AM from the World Bank as a result of coercive and mimetic isomorphic processes. Further, that the ADB introduced a mechanism ill-suited to the pre-existing (old)organizational culture of the ADB, which is based on consensus and hierarchical rule-following in the context of ADB operations to further economic growth while upholding state sovereignty. Despite its restructure and recent review, the mechanism's weakness was revealed through a stand-off between China and the AM over an investigation begun in 2009 (creating something ‘blue’). The paper concludes that the AM's ability to serve its purpose will remain hampered as long as ADB maintains consensus around economic growth and state sovereignty over providing recourse to affected people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article provides the first detailed modern examination of Julia Wedgwood's interventions in the Victorian debate about the origin of language. Wedgwood wanted to understand language, consistently with Darwin's theory of evolution, as having evolved gradually out of other forms of animal behaviour. She focused specifically on imitative behaviours, siding with the imitative or "bow-wow" theory of language which her father Hensleigh Wedgwood also championed. She opposed the conceptualist or "ding-dong" theory of Max Müller, on which language is the "Rubicon" that radically separates humans from animals. I argue that Julia Wedgwood was right to emphasise that the human capacity for language is continuous with animal behaviours, though she was wrong to reduce this continuity to a single behaviour, imitation. Nevertheless, her language essays remain significant as an early attempt to forge a Darwinian account of language, and they illuminate the fact that women were able to take part in Victorian philosophical debates, including on an abstract topic such as philosophy of language. The essays also provide entry into Wedgwood's thought and work more broadly, which are unjustly neglected and deserve to be recovered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the concept of mimicry to explore the ways in which the tensions of empire were 'played out' through the West India Regiments' performance of military music and cricket. Both tools and products of the British Empire, cricket and military music could be used at cross-purposes and gained meaning and ideological significance in practice. Attention to the cultural practices of the West India Regiments sheds significant light on the connections between early twentieth-century social change and the dynamics of nineteenth-century colonialism. Moreover, it opens up new - and possibly counterintuitive - connections between Caribbean military history and scholarship on the social and cultural forces that have shaped Caribbean society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a composite of two oral presentations: a public lecture and a seminar paper, presented as an overview of my work. The following exposition follows this order: (1) the attempt to rethink the notion ofmimesis, not as imitation but as the production of difference; (2) as a parallel to this rethinking, the idea of what I have calledcontrol of the imaginary; (3) the question offiction. I hope to show that this initial group of three principles are interlaced, so that the second one – the idea ofcontrol– follows as a development of this rethinking ofmimesis; that the question offictioncomes from the idea ofcontrol of the imaginary. It will be out of our concern that the question of fictionality now threatens to give place to a further division, between internal or literary fiction and external fiction. This will allow us to consider: (4) the relationship between (internal or literary) fiction and poetry, in which will be shown – through the examination of two poems by Celan – a new form of mimesis that is not based on the description of a state, but on the emphasis on its processuality; and (5) the limits of (external) fiction, in which we find the idea of pan-fictionality, which creates both the values on which a society or a culture is grounded and the dominant discourses that legitimise the application of these values as a standard of verification, and this control. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper intends to examine the meanings of imitation in the development of psychic reality, taking into account processes that relate to a primitive and sensory-dominated area of experience, described by Thomas Ogden as the autistic–contiguous position. Influenced by the works of Tustin, Bick, Meltzer, and Gaddini, Ogden understands imitation as a form of object relatedness associated to this mode of psychic experience. He emphasizes its role as a primitive and presymbolic mechanism that allows the subject to hold onto some aspects of the other in the absence of a consistent inner space of fantasies where they could be stored. Ogden also examines imitation from the point of view of psychopathology, stressing its role as a defense mechanism against experiences of disruption of the cohesion of the self, but by no means restricted to patients suffering from severe psychological conditions. The paper first examines Ogden's theoretical influences and how imitation may act as a condition for the emergence of an integrated self. Second, it scrutinizes imitation as a predominantly sensorial set of experiences engaged in the production of subjective changes and meanings, and draws distinctions between Ogden's and the other authors’ understanding of imitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why has the story of the vernacular cartoon-based newspapers in colonial India, which were versions of the British Punch, remained obscure? Specifically, what does the story of the Urdu Punch and Hindi Punch among other vernacular Punches tell us about colonial politics? Approaching memory and history as forms of knowledge, this article draws upon archival research to construct an alternate history of Punch and the vernacular Punches in colonial India. By focusing on two plots—the fate in India of the British humour magazine Punch and a debate around humour in vernacular cartoons—this paper brings attention to the cartoon as a space for rethinking the history of Punch and the narrative of mimicry and modernity. I argue that memory of cultural practices, such as cartooning, can be hegemonic and tactical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new framework to synthesize humanoid behavior by learning and imitating the behavior of an articulated body using motion capture. The video-based motion capturing method has been developed mainly for analysis of human movement, but is very rarely used to teach or imitate the behavior of an articulated body to a virtual agent in an on-line manner. Using our proposed applications, new behaviors of one agent can be simultaneously analyzed and used to train or imitate another with a novel visual learning methodology. In the on-line learning phase, we propose a new way of synthesizing humanoid behavior based on on-line learning of principal component analysis (PCA) bases of the behavior. Although there are many existing studies which utilize PCA for object/behavior representation, this paper introduces two criteria to determine if the dimension of the subspace is to be expanded or not and applies a Fisher criterion to synthesize new behaviors. The proposed methodology is well-matched to both behavioral training and synthesis, since it is automatically carried out as an on-line long-term learning of humanoid behaviors without the overhead of an expanding learning space. The final outcome of these methodologies is to synthesize multiple humanoid behaviors for the generation of arbitrary behaviors. The experimental results using a humanoid figure and a virtual robot demonstrate the feasibility and merits of this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a formidable issue how robots can show behaviors to be considered as the corresponding human's ones since the body structure is different between robots and humans. As a simple case for such a correspondence problem, this paper presents a robot that learns to vocalize vowels through the interaction with its caregiver. Inspired by the findings of developmental psychology, we focus on the roles of maternal imitation (i.e., imitation of the robot voices by the caregiver) since it could play a role to instruct the correspondence of the sounds. Furthermore, we suppose that it causes unconscious anchoring in which the imitated voice by the caregiver is performed unconsciously, closely to one of his/her own vowels and hereby helps to make the robot's utterances to be more vowel-like. We propose a method for vowel learning with an imitative caregiver, under the assumptions that the robot knows the desired categories of the caregiver's vowels, and the rough estimate of mapping between the region of sounds that the caregiver can generate and the region that the robot can. Through experiments with a Japanese imitative caregiver, we show that a robot succeeds in acquiring more vowel-like utterances than a robot without such a caregiver, even when it is given different types of mapping functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When gold became considered as a precious metal for decorative purposes and later for coinage, attempts at producing imitations soon began to appear. There were two motives behind this activity: to make a metal that could pass as gold, and to quite openly imitate this precious metal for people who could not afford true gold. Imitation gold was produced by metallurgists, and later also by alchemists. This paper is about gold imitations that did not contain any precious metal. Gold-like alloys of silver are thus excluded. An attempt is further undertaken to classify into separate groups the various gold imitations that have appeared in different cultures throughout time, with an emphasis on brass as a typical imitation of gold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we apply a model derived from dynamic capability theory to analyse the evolution and development of Huawei as an emerging MNC that is also a dynamic learning organization. We show how this firm has evolved through four distinct eras, characterized in succession by imitation, improvement, integration and cross-disciplinary engagement. Each era has involved a sequence of steps, beginning with opportunities, and followed by path, position, processes and transformation. Through much of its history, Huawei drew heavily on outside expertise. By contrast, the contemporary Huawei has become self-sufficient, as progressive transformations have enabled the firm to acquire dynamic capability for developing unique client-driven solutions by combining knowledge from diverse internal expert communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this collaborative paper is a form of creative collaboration: translations and adaptations across distinct historical periods and cultural contexts. The paper draws upon Edward H. Friedman's experience as an adaptor and translator, and both participants' research and scholarly work. The paper focuses on the choices made by adaptors in considering the time, place and contexts of the original while bearing in mind the exigencies and the sensibilities of the present. There is no doubt that the practice of imitatio in the Early Modern period and current practices of spin-offs and remakes differ significantly; however, this project reflects upon what Early Modernists can learn from the contemporary adaptations and stagings of the texts we study and teach. This question was central to Emilie Bergmann's recent cross-cultural seminar on Renaissance and Baroque imitatio and centuries of translations and adaptations into French prose and theatre (Lesage and Molière) and Italian opera (Don Giovanni) in the eighteenth century, and recent English and Spanish spin-offs. The participants' specific focus is on Friedman's own adaptations of Lope de Vega's La dama boba, Unamuno's Niebla and Cervantes' Don Quijote and El laberinto de amor, in dialogue with other recent adaptations of Spanish comedia: the Royal Shakespeare Company's version of Sor Juana's Los empeños de una casa, Octavio Solís' Dreamlandia and Man of the Flesh (versions, respectively, of La vida es sueño and El burlador de Sevilla). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The city of Salvador da Bahia, Brazil attracts considerable numbers of visitors who spend time there in order to participate in local cultural practices, particularly percussion music, capoeira and African–Brazilian dance. This paper investigates the extent of their engagement with those practices and with the wider cultural context. It was found that such participatory cross-cultural learning, adoption and travel can be split into categories and differs markedly from conventional tourism. Theorisations of cultural interaction have frequently concentrated on colonialism or migration, where acculturation is a by-product of political, economic and even military shifts. The concept of “mimicry” as used in postcolonial theory is evoked here and considered in relation to the processes studied. One of the main differences is that the subjects voluntarily expose themselves to a measure of culture shock. Furthermore, the adoption takes place against the predominant global flow of cultural influence from the “West” to the rest. Apart from certain factors which make Bahian culture accessible and attractive, motivating factors for this voluntary movement and orientation are the perception of particular aspects of that culture as “authentic other”, as well as a weakened attachment to place, specifically to Western community and cultural origins. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the past 20 years or so, the psychological research on imitation has flourished. However, our working definition of imitation has not adequately adapted in order to reflect this research. The closest that we've come to a revamped conception of imitation comes from the work of Michael Tomasello. Despite its numerous virtues, Tomasello's definition is in need of at least two significant amendments, if it is to reflect the current state of knowledge. Accordingly, it is our goal in this paper to reformulate Tomasello's definition of imitation in order to account for both the latest empirical findings and the conceptual considerations that follow from them. Specifically, we argue that a satisfactory definition of imitation ought to be formulated as follows: imitation is the reproduction of an observed behavior where the agent imitating (1) recognizes the behavior of the demonstrator as goal-directed and (2) has some particular interest in or concern for replicating the precise technique performed by the author of the observed action. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In wrestling with the precariousness of their legitimacy and reputation, diviners in China have developed their own approaches to legitimating and professionalising their business and occupation. This paper discusses the strategy of incorporating the occupation of divination into modern knowledge production and expert systems by forming academic associations and purchasing professional certificates. Diviners’ imitation of professionalism is interpreted as a struggle towards gaining membership of modern society. The efforts of diviners to seek legitimacy also provide an opportunity to observe how a marginalised social group whose behaviour is generally stigmatised justifies their role in society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present paper reports on a new objective, standardized, age-adapted and reliable assessment method for measuring declarative memory (assessed via the deferred imitation [DI] task) from infancy to childhood. Test statistics (item difficulty, item-total correlations) show that the Frankfurt Imitation Tests, developed in a four-wave-longitudinal study, are sound declarative memory measurements. High Cohen's κ values indicate high inter-rater reliability. Testing and retesting DI performance with additional samples after short intervals demonstrated moderate test–retest reliability. External validity calculations indicate that DI performance is related to language development, cognitive development as well as social development. In the future, this new standardized declarative memory assessment instrument will facilitate longitudinal growth modelling as it provides measurement equivalence across age. From a clinical perspective, the FIT tests will allow to diagnose neuropsychological samples more thoroughly as declarative memory is an important prerequisite for a variety of developmental abilities (e.g., cognitive and language abilities). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, the authors' theorizing shifts away from the catalytic role of the flood itself – or other crises – towards a deeper understanding of the relationship between change and stability, taking the example of UK flood insurance and the agreements – and the implicit policy approaches – between the actors involved: private insurers and the government. The study relies upon in-depth analysis of policy agreements governing flood insurance since the 1960s, and semi-structured interviews with six current or former flood insurance professionals. The important agents of change have been, firstly, threats to existing household insurers from new entrants unencumbered by agreements to insure all comers. Secondly, technological changes have made exposure more explicit and pricing risk both easier and less expensive. The slow pace of change and the relatively stable role of the different actors and coalitions is now clearer. Many windows of opportunity created by major flooding or financial crises have not significantly affected the pace or direction of policy change. The overriding importance of the London location for – and the profitability of – the insurance industry, both to government and to the insurers, explains the extraordinary policy stability described here. This history suggests that the UK may not be a good model for imitation elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Talia Welsh (2006) argues that Shaun Gallagher and Andrew Meltzoff's (1996) application of neonatal imitation research is insufficient grounds for their claim that neonates are born with a primitive body image and thus an innate self-awareness. Drawing upon an understanding of the self that is founded upon a “theory of mind,” Welsh challenges the notion that neonates have the capacity for self-awareness and charges the supposition with an essentialism which threatens to disrupt more social constructionist understandings of the self. In this paper, I initially defend Gallagher and Meltzoff's (1996) application of infant imitation to understandings of neonatal self-awareness by explaining how body image schemas can be understood as non-representational embodied cognitive phenomena that challenge “theory of mind” theory. I then further develop the claim that neonates are born self-aware with reference to my own work in fetal development. I conclude that Welsh's political concerns are unfounded by showing how the conclusion that a neonate is self-aware does not signal a return to an essentialist understanding of self-awareness, but rather introduces into philosophical and psychological discourse possible alternate understandings of an embodied sense of self that are embedded within intersubjective contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that exemplary judges, that is, paradigmatically good judges, are vitally important both to inculcating the judicial virtues and to developing a theory of judicial virtue. Critically, such exemplars are not only real but also fictional. Thus, literature is central to both improving the judicial practice and theorizing about excellence in judging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how Riverbend's blog/bookBaghdad burningresonates with representations of Bhabha's conceptualization of the Other through the concept of mimicry which disrupts colonial discourse. Riverbend, the pseudonym of the blogger ofBaghdad burninglaunched 17 August 2003, generates two representations of mimicry. The first is the new Iraqi governing members who, ‘hand-picked by Bremer’, represent how mimicry slips into mockery. To Riverbend, those governing members are puppets with colonial masks who project themselves as Iraqi nationalists. Their interest in Iraq is in fact a continuation of the colonial pretensions. Second, Riverbend resists the colonial discourse by utilizing mimicry as likeness with menace to both the colonizers and their mimic men. As she uses the empowering language of the colonizer as well as western humour and knowledge of pop culture to accentuate resistance, Riverbend eventually becomes a menace to the colonizer because she ‘is almost the same, but not quite’. Through the lens of mimicry as a colonial mode to legitimize authority, Riverbend becomes the voice of dissent or of resistance using cyberspace to expose both the colonizers and their mimic men as part of the ongoing colonial discourse which is both pretentious and dehumanizing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the problem of market changes and the interplay between innovation and imitation on the basis of an ethnographic case study of retail credit services. It presents a six-stage metamorphosing circle – starting from conception and going on to formatting, promotion, adaptation, transmutation and, finally, internal supervision – as part of an institutionally bounded mode of production based on copy/paste and updating procedures. Such a mode is called ‘pastiche production’ and it may be considered as a less innovative variant of bricolage, more suited to those players in advanced economies who mediate between global financial markets and national retail credit markets. From this empirical perspective, the conceptual separation between innovation and imitation is reconsidered, as the two notions seem to be deeply entangled in practice, in the sense that what appears like innovation at the national level may basically be an imitative propensity on an international or global scale. Moreover, the idea that innovation and imitation represent core principles of social organization (cf. Tarde) is also questioned in relation to modern finance, as they appear less like causes and more like consequences of institutional practices and governance procedures designed to organize mass payment behaviour capable of generating regular and substantial cash flows. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper connects a stylistic hallmark of Marx's work—a dramatic antipathy to imitation and copying—to his rejection of the epistemology of likeness or “harmony” in French romantic social Utopian thought. A space of the common without social mimesis—not just representation and imitation but competitive appropriation, likeness-based equality, social unity, cultivated resemblance, and so on—is in some ways paradoxical. But Marx upholds a vision of the common as collision, foreshadowing Althusser's notion of aleatory materialism, through a discourse of the atom. He moves from atheistic Epicurean models of abstract individuality and opposition to false universalism, to Hegelian ideas of the disaggregated atoms of political class activity, to a rejection of Buonarroti's ambition to harness self-seeking atoms in the collectivity, to a championing of real rather than ideal collisions. Acutely aware of social mirroring processes in the paradigm of the fetishism of the commodity, Marx puts the Lucretian “uproarious contest” and “hostile tension” of atoms at the core of the nonromantic sociality of the common. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phonological process analysis was carried out using a 40-word imitation task with 30 11;6–14;6 year old Kannada-speaking persons with Down syndrome in comparison with 15 non-verbal mental age matched typically developing children. Percentages of occurrence were significantly higher for the Down syndrome group with certain exceptions. Some phonological processes were observed only in the Down syndrome group. Kannada is a non-Indo European language spoken in the southern Indian state of Karnataka that has not had much research attention, especially with respect to persons with communication disorders. This paper highlights the phonological processes observed in school-aged persons with Down syndrome, some of which are similar to those observed in English and Dutch (cluster reduction, stopping, gliding, consonant harmony) and others that differ owing to differences in Kannada's phonology (e.g. retroflex fronting, degemination). The study gives a cross-linguistic perspective to the study of phonological processes in Down syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturing firms located in high-cost production locations have developed a series of complex inimitability strategies in response to intensive competition from low-cost producers. This paper draws upon the resource-based view of the firm to explore inimitability, as a strategy firms deploy in response to imitation. The analysis is based upon in-depth interviews with lock, jewellery and whistle manufacturers located in the West Midlands, UK. Many of these firms have been transformed into niche manufacturers whose competitiveness is based around a process of customisation through a co-production relationship with customers, the delivery of service experiences and a continual process of design-intensive innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the standard models of North-South technological-knowledge diffusion, the larger the initial technological-knowledge gap between countries, the greater the Southern catching up. However, this result does not adjust well to Southern reality as a whole. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the disparity between the theoretical outcome and the empirical findings can be reduced by considering that: (i) the South can only imitate Northern technological knowledge when it is sufficiently close to the Northern frontier; (ii) the advantage of the South's moderate backwardness, together with its imitation capacity, is a mechanism of catching up with the North; and (iii) the Southern catching-up specification can be country specific. In particular, we show that the behavior of the South's relative level of employed human capital affects Southern imitation capacity and depends on the catching-up specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that recent developments in higher education presuppose a conceptual framework that fails plausibly to account for indispensable aspects of educational experience—in particular that a university education is fundamentally a project of personal transformation within a particular social order. It fails, I suggest, primarily because it consists of mutually supporting but erroneous conceptualisations of knowledge and the human subject. In pursuit of transparency and codification we have seemingly forgotten education's existential dimension: that education is closely tied to questions of personal identity and the formation of character and that this is an embodied project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to have a robotic system able to effectively learn by imitation and not merely reproduce the movements of a human teacher, the system should have the capability to deeply understand the perceived actions to be imitated. This paper deals with the development of a cognitive architecture for learning by imitation in which a rich conceptual representation of the observed actions is built. The purpose of the following discussion is to show how the same conceptual representation can be used both in a bottom-up approach, in order to learn sequences of actions by imitation learning paradigm, and in a top-down approach, in order to anchor the symbolical representations to the perceptual activities of the robotic system. Experiments concerned with the problem of teaching a humanoid robotic system simple manipulative tasks are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a review of the literature on the role of imitation in the earliest stages of social interaction between babies and familiar partners. The review focuses on the ways in which reciprocal imitation marks familiar relationships that provide special contexts for babies to engage actively and exuberantly in the construction of a shared culture. Because adults' perception of a baby's actions and intentions are filtered by the adult's experience of living within a particular culture, babies can obtain valuable information about this culture from the differences between what they do and how familiar adults respond to them. As they become increasingly interested in the social meaning of people's behaviour, infants also become more sensitive about how their own actions may be interpreted, showing pride and delight when their intentions are realised and embarrassed withdrawal when their efforts fail. When very young children are observed in unfamiliar contexts and when they are cared for and educated in professional settings, they may have relatively few opportunities for lively, joyful exchanges with reassuringly familiar partners and this can distort adults' perceptions of 'normal' infant behaviour. It is argued that adults' attentive interest in mutually enjoyable exchanges with young children is an important difference between humans and other apes and provides an essential foundation for pedagogy and for children's active participation in a shared culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until the 1970s, models of early infancy tended to depict the young child as internally preoccupied and incapable of processing visual-tactile data from the external world. Meltzoff and Moore's groundbreaking studies of neonatal imitation disprove this characterization of early life: They suggest that the infant is cognizant of its external environment and is able to control its own body. Taking up these experiments, theorists argue that neonatal imitation provides an empirical justification for the existence of an innate ability to engage in social communication. Since later imitation is taken as a benchmark for self- and other-awareness, theorists claim that a proto- or primitive self must exist in the infant. This paper takes up the issue of whether or not neonatal imitation does provide us with a ground to argue against developmental accounts that consider self-awareness to be a later acquisition. I argue that the enthusiasm over neonatal imitation is premature. Psychological studies that claim to prove neonatal imitation do not provide sufficient grounds for dismissing alternate philosophical and psychological theories about the self as being a post-birth “event” rather than an intrinsic condition. Therefore, I argue that there is no compelling reason to suppose that we come to the world with a primitive sense of self- or other-awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews eight proposed strategies for solving the symbol grounding problem (SGP), which was given its classic formulation in Harnad (1990). After a concise introduction, the paper provides an analysis of the requirement that must be satisfied by any hypothesis seeking to solve the SGP, the zero semantical commitment condition . It is then used to assess the eight strategies, which are organized into three main approaches: representationalism, semi-representationalism and non-representationalism. The conclusion is that all the strategies are semantically committed and hence that none of them provides a valid solution to the SGP, which remains an open problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some of the research on imitation that shows it to be much more than simply a behavioural or reflex response, but rather an aspect of the growth of genuine social and psychological interaction and part of an intersubjective process that includes the representation of object relationships. Differentiations between mind, behaviour and emotion may no longer stand up in the light of much of the new neuroscientific and other research of recent years, and the fact that thoughts and feelings have physiological and neuronal correlates. I will look at some of research about ‘mirror neurons’ as a way of trying to bridge such gaps. I will try to integrate some of these thoughts in an extended clinical example of a 4-year-old girl with some autistic features who was seen for intensive psychotherapy. In this I will examine the role of affect attunement, imitation, mirroring and the need to amplify emotional states as part emotional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a humanoid robot system that can capture and mimic the motion of human body parts in real-time. The underlying vision system is able to automatically detect and track human body parts such as hands and faces in images captured by the robot's eyes. It is based on a probabilistic approach that can detect and track multiple blobs in a 60-Hz stereo image stream on a standard dual processor PC. A random jerk model is employed to approximate the observed human motion and a Kalman filter is used to estimate its parameters (three-dimensional positions, velocities and accelerations). This enables the system to realistically mimic the perceived motion in real-time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the differences of including subjectivity and imitation in the study of truth in the works of philosophers, Paul Ricoeur and Rene Girard. Examination of the cited differences; Arguments on the implicit nature of the philosophers' papers; Description of Ricoeur's understanding of mimesis.

Female impersonation, the public presentation of a feminine appearance, mannerisms, and character by males, is a neglected, but informative, area of inquiry for gender theorists. This paper examines the experiences and identities of a sample of professional female impersonators. Using data from semistructured interviews, the virtual (externally imposed) and actual (internally constructed) social identities of such men are analyzed. Reliance on impersonators' own accounts of experiences as both performers and socially stigmatized persons uncovers discrepancies between perceptions of self and social labels. The social constructionist interpretation of gender is explored in light of the essentialist beliefs of both impersonators and their critics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]