Automatic Imitation

People spontaneously imitate a wide range of different behaviors. The interest in this phenomenon dates back to at least the 18th century when Adam Smith (1759) argued that imitation can be seen as a primitive form of sympathy. Despite the longstanding interest, it was not until the 20th century that different research fields within psychology and neuroscience started empirically investigating this social phenomenon. This book brings together leading researchers from various domains to provide readers with a recent overview of developments in automatic imitation research.
This is an open access book.

This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access People spontaneously imitate a wide range of different behaviors To provide readers with a recent overview of developments in automatic imitation research imitation can be seen as a primitive form of sympathy

Autorentext

Oliver Genschow is a Professor for Cognitive, Social, and Economic Psychology at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg (Germany). In his research, he investigates interaction patterns among humans with a strong focus on perception-action coupling, including person perception, imitation, and anticipated action. He applies a multi-method approach to study processes underlying automatic imitation by combining measures from social and cognitive psychology. In his role as editor of the German In-Mind magazine version, Oliver Genschow disseminates psychological research to a lay audience.

Emiel Cracco is a senior postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology at Ghent University (Belgium). In his research, he studies action perception and imitation from a cognitive neuroscience perspective, combining behavioral methods with neuroscientific methods such as TMS, EEG, and fMRI. In 2022, he was awarded the Early Career Award of the European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience in recognition of his work.

Inhalt

Chapter 1 Different types of automatic imitation.- Chapter 2 Mechanisms of automatic imitation.- Chapter 3 Internal and external factors influencing automatic imitation.- Chapter 4 Consequences of automatic imitation.