Is there evidence for automatic imitation in a strategic context?

Aczél, Balázs; Bagó, Bence; Foldes, Andrei

doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.0500

Cited by 7 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…significant incentives to avoid it and, as explained below, close examination of Cook et al's methods reveals that their subjects were given only very weak incentives to avoid imitation: little more than one British penny, less than 3 US cents per 60-game match. Second, a subsequent study using a similar procedure failed to replicate the results of the Cook et al experiment (19).…”

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confidence: 40%

“…All SEs are clustered at the pair level. To look for effects of timing and experience, we ran such regressions not only for the full sample, but also splitting the sample into games played early (games 1-10) in a pairing and late (games [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20], and then further splitting the sample into games played early in a pairing and late, interacted with whether The P values correspond to a one-tailed t test (H 0 : frequency = 50%, H A : frequency > 50%).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Players of Matching Pennies automatically imitate opponents’ gestures against strong incentives

Bélot

Crawford

Heyes

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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There is a large body of evidence of apparently spontaneous mimicry in humans. This phenomenon has been described as "automatic imitation" and attributed to a mirror neuron system, but there is little direct evidence that it is involuntary rather than intentional. Cook et al. supplied the first such evidence in a unique strategic game design that gave all subjects a pecuniary incentive to avoid imitation [Cook R, Bird G, Lünser G, Huck S, Heyes C (2012) Proc Biol Sci 279(1729): [780][781][782][783][784][785][786]. Subjects played Rock-PaperScissors repeatedly in matches between fixed pairs, sometimes with one and sometimes with both subjects blindfolded. The frequency of draws in the blind-blind condition was at chance, but in the blind-sighted condition it was significantly higher, suggesting automatic imitation had occurred. Automatic imitation would raise novel issues concerning how strategic interactions are modeled in game theory and social science; however, inferring automatic imitation requires significant incentives to avoid it, and subjects' incentives were less than 3 US cents per 60-game match. We replaced Cook et al.'s Rock-Paper-Scissors with a Matching Pennies game, which allows far stronger incentives to avoid imitation for some subjects, with equally strong incentives to imitate for others. Our results are important in providing evidence of automatic imitation against significant incentives. That some of our subjects had incentives to imitate also enables us clearly to distinguish intentional responding from automatic imitation, and we find evidence that both occur. Thus, our results strongly confirm the occurrence of automatic imitation, and illuminate the way that automatic and intentional processes interact in a strategic context. zero-sum game | face-to-face strategic interaction | neuroeconomics T here is a large body of evidence suggesting that observing an action increases the probability that the observer will immediately perform the same action, even when the observer has not been instructed to imitate and does not obtain any reward from doing so (1-5). This phenomenon has been described as "automatic imitation" and attributed to the operation of mirror neurons (6-8). Each of these neurons, first discovered in the monkey premotor and parietal cortex, responds both to the sight and execution of a given action (9-11). Since the discovery of mirror neurons in the monkey, considerable evidence has been amassed suggesting that humans also have a mirror neuron system (12, 13).Until recently there was little direct evidence to support the view that automatic imitation is involuntary rather than strategic or intentional. Even evidence of imitation in infants and nonhuman animals has been construed as intentional (14), and experimental techniques that could reliably distinguish automatic from intentional imitation have been hard to find (15). Cook et al. supplied the first direct evidence in a unique strategic game design that gave human subjects a pecuniary incentive to avoid imitation (16). The...

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confidence: 40%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Players of Matching Pennies automatically imitate opponents’ gestures against strong incentives

Bélot

Crawford

Heyes

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…To dissociate between slow and fast opponents, players played against a confederate that was instructed to adjust its behavior across blocks. The confederate was instructed to act as a slow player in block 1 (games 1-4) and block 3 (games 9-12) and act as a fast player in block 2 (games 5-8) and block 4 (games [13][14][15][16]. The difference between slow and fast acts consisted of the adjustment of reaction times and movement distances.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…13 and 14; but see ref. 15 for contrary evidence). In these studies, the opponent's actions had direct consequences for the player's payoff in the game.…”

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confidence: 99%

Unintended imitation affects success in a competitive game

Naber

Pashkam

Nakayama

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Imitation typically occurs in social contexts where people interact and have common goals. Here, we show that people are also highly susceptible to imitate each other in a competitive context. Pairs of players performed a competitive and fast-reaching task (a variant of the arcade whac-a-mole game) in which money could be earned if players hit brief-appearing visual targets on a large touchscreen before their opponents. In three separate experiments, we demonstrate that reaction times and movements were highly correlated within pairs of players. Players affected their success by imitating each other, and imitation depended on the visibility of the opponent's behavior. Imitation persisted, despite the competitive and demanding nature of the game, even if this resulted in lower scores and payoffs and even when there was no need to counteract the opponent's actions.mimicry | competition | motor response | readiness I mitation shapes the way we behave during social interactions (1, 2). It can occur unwittingly and without any awareness (1, 3). There are numerous studies that demonstrate how people are persistently prone to mimic complex behaviors such as emotions, facial expressions, and gestures during interpersonal communication (e.g., refs. 1 and 4-6). Although it appears frequently in everyday life, its true purpose and mechanisms remain a mystery.Recent studies have tried to discover the underlying factors that determine the degree of imitation during personal interactions. Scientists have found a causal link between acts of mimicry and mutual attraction and social appreciation between the subjects (7,8). Similarly, subjects with affiliate goals tend to imitate each other more (9). It is therefore suggested that it serves to bind us together in groups (10, 11). Contemporary literature thus implies that the degree of imitation during personal interaction is variable and depends on mutual, social goals set by the actors in a dyad. However, is imitation merely driven by feelings of affiliation?Independent of the social aspects of mimicry, observing someone engage in an action is enough to trigger that same action in the perceiver (1, 12). Such a perception and action account of imitation suggests that this behavior may still emerge in a nonsocial context. Several recent studies support this idea, reporting a persistency of imitation when people are competing with opposing goals (refs. 13 and 14; but see ref. 15 for contrary evidence). In these studies, the opponent's actions had direct consequences for the player's payoff in the game. However, in many competitive games, the action of each player is less directly linked to the actions of the other players. For example, in basketball, at the moment a player is making a distant shot, all that is relevant is the location of the basket and not the specific actions of other players. Would mimicry happen in such more general circumstances? Moreover, the studies cited above (13, 14) represent mimicry of specific actions. However, the success in a competitive game also rel...

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“…The players of the same study also preferred to use one of the gestures over the other ones (rock: 36%). Aczel et al (2012) also found in their replication, as well as in the original study, that the three gestures were not equally shown in the games, players presenting higher frequency of scissors. These frequency differences can be problematic since even without being significant they can result in a rate of draws significantly higher than chance.…”

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confidence: 85%

An empirical analysis of the methodology of automatic imitation research in a strategic context.

Aczél¹,

Kekecs²,

Bagó³

et al. 2015

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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Since the discovery of the mirror neuron system, it has been proposed that the automatic tendency to copy observed actions exists in humans and that this mechanism might be responsible for a range of social behavior. A strong argument for automatic behavior can be made when actions are executed against motivation to do otherwise. Strategic games in which imitation is disadvantageous serve as ideal designs for studying the automatic nature of participants’ behavior. Most recently, Belot, Crawford, and Heyes (2013) conducted an explorative study using a modified version of the Rock–Paper–Scissors game, and suggested that in the case of asynchrony in the execution of the gestures, automatic imitation can be observed early on after the opponent’s presentation. In our study, we video recorded the games, which allowed us to examine the effect of delay on imitative behavior as well as the sensitivity of the previously employed analyses. The examination of the recorded images revealed that more than 80% of the data were irrelevant to the study of automatic behavior. Additional bias in the paradigm became apparent, as previously presented gestures were found to affect the behavior of the players. After noise filtering, we found no evidence of automatic imitation in either the whole filtered data set or in selected time windows based on delay length. Besides questioning the strength of the results of previous analyses, we propose several experimental and statistical modifications for further research on automatic imitation.

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Is there evidence for automatic imitation in a strategic context?

Cited by 7 publications

References 7 publications

Players of Matching Pennies automatically imitate opponents’ gestures against strong incentives

Players of Matching Pennies automatically imitate opponents’ gestures against strong incentives

Unintended imitation affects success in a competitive game

An empirical analysis of the methodology of automatic imitation research in a strategic context.

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