Mike Tomasello wrote:
>In imitative learning, on the other hand, an organism copies the actual
>behavior or behavioral strategy of another organism.
Alan Fogel in his 1993 book "Developing through relationships: Origins of
communication, self, and culture" rather convincingly argues that imitation
as "copying behavior" has its limitations. He coins the notion of
"co-regulation" where actions of an organism are regulated by actions of
another organism. In this sense, imitation is a specific form of
co-regulation.
There are some claims that imitation is based on complex mental
representations. However, Fogel demonstrates that it is based on
co-regulation and self-organization processes and does not require
necessarily the notion of mental representations (of the mental states of
model actor). I, personally, agree with Fogel and think there is no clear
cut boundary between imitation as a learning strategy and other forms of
co-regulation.
Unfortunately, I shipped all my books to Delaware (I'm in the midst of
relocation to the East Coast) and I do not have here (in California) my
books to bring specific examples from Primak and De Waal of what can be
considered apes' observational learning (or learning by "imitation") using
Mike Tomasello's terms.
However, in support of Mike Tomasello's point of view, I remember reading
Vygotsky's paper where he equalized imitation and ZPD. In this paper,
Vygotsky suggested that imitation is much more complex than people often
think and that it can be specifically human way of learning. Again, I need
my books to make the quote more specific.
Eugene Matusov
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Eugene Matusov
Department of Educational Studies
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19711
http://www.ematusov.com