Imitation, Mimetic Theory, and Religious & Cultural Evolution
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It is this simultaneity of needing to consume yet not eat that views the work of eating perpetually reconfigured and reshaped because individuals' engagements with meals declare that eating needs to be produced to be (as well as perhaps, fundamentally, feel) as unlike eating as possible; it requires to be included and confined, squashed and reshaped.

Mimetic criticism that is literary important in literature as it links art, literature, with mankind and assists the reader link utilizing the commentary itself.

As eating isn't any longer confined to an taking that is agential of meals through the mouth, boundaries of outside and inside are reconfigured.

Mimesis & Mimetic Theory

According to the framework work, M.H.Abrams provides four theories that are critical.e. Mimetic theory, Pragmatic, Expressive, and theories that are objective. Engaging with all the food-centered methods of people who have anorexia underscores an identical but need that is further concentrate attention on that consuming body—on what bodies are and do when they eat on a diet program like Xyngular Diet or 21 days fix” (Probyn 2000: 14) and, importantly, don't consume. Moreover, most undergraduates are able, without prompting, to correlate these images of air-brushed models to disorders that are eating. Finally, Girard's interdisciplinary theory brings to mind that of Julian Jaynes. But above all does it becomes obvious that close to the paradigm associated with the image - the visual, non-moving and image that is single of the art philosophers appear therefore fond - additionally, there are far more complex sorts of pictures, maybe not just in music and in literary works, but in the visual arts because well. The end result is a written book in process: Intimate Domain: Desire, Trauma, and Mimetic Theory.

This is really because the theorized more avid binding of the putative glycine that is harmful towards the NMDA receptor's glycine site, would extend the time for the simultaneous event of one other two activities, i.e. for the simultaneous exit regarding the magnesium ion from the NMDA channel and the simultaneous binding of glutamate towards the NMDA receptor's glutamate binding site. Individuals would need to be already pretty human to enable something like Girard's mimetic crisis to happen, before their hominization process begins. 1st moves in the way of hysteria, and is hinted at in Three Essays on the Theory of sex, where Freud attracts a connection between anorexia and the disgust that is hysterical the bottom of the refusal of meals. Although philosophy and psychoanalytic theory are distinct means of exploring human presence, their appeal for me personally has a consistency that is certain.

This more eclectic approach, where in fact the dogmatic barriers between theology and the technology of faith loosen up, seeing their findings as supplemental, as different strategies towards the exact same objective, could make mimetic theory more relevant as there does perhaps not appear to be the exact same need among scholars of faith and theology today to aggressively protect their regions to be allowed to undertake ‘free research'. As the 1990s progressed, earlier understandings of consuming disorders as psychological illnesses were increasingly eclipsed by their expected relationship with unlawful gender-betrayal and activity(Grey 2006).

This disjuncture, as eating takes place beyond corporeal perimeters, is many clearly seen in individuals' narratives of cooking for other individuals and viewing them eat; this performs eating beyond and among systems and additionally brings tasting right back into the discussion in an way that is intriguing.

The Four Coordinates Of Literary Critique

A brief history of critique could solely be written on the foundation of successive interpretations of salient passages from Aristotle's 'Poetics'” (11). Also, the attempt that is phenomenological reach methodically some type of essence is a characteristic trait of mimetic theory. This provides up a conceptualization of consuming bodies as constantly possibly turned in out perhaps not just by sickness but also by consuming; vomit sets in motion a reversal of expected and categories that are everyday also as of foods, possibly. Following the instance set by Irigaray and Kristeva into the 1980s, a number of feminist scholars in the following 2 full decades continue to locate possibilities that are constructive feminist scholarship in Girard's concept. The beauty industry, and icons such as Barbie Dolls, play in creating unrealistic body expectations in young women and, by extension, eating disorders (i.e for the past thirty years, media critics have examined the roles that fashion magazines. Spitzack 1993; Kilbourne 1995; Wolf 1991).

He attracts on his research that is own and Girard's concept associated with the sacred to develop an enhanced perspective of the partnership between these texts. This short article deploys Burke's frameworks of purgation and negation to explore the dynamics of a narrative that is changing the feminist community and the results of that narrative for all recognized as having an eating disorder. And just it occurs will we be able to judge which of the possibilities above best applies to a particular eating disorder if we can recognize reward pathology when. These affective navigations of meals give rise to fractures and multiplicities of eating; it is disassembled and reassembled, and takes forms that are multiple.

Consumerism will need to build manufacturing on environmentally means that are friendly on sustainable quantities of manufacturing and on serving individuals' real needs instead than on stimulating artificial and pernicious ‘wants' copied from the mimetic desires inherent in the American Dream and reflected in the life of those made famous by different areas of the media. Just by comprehending the past history of the eating disorder as a product of dramatistic motive can the contours of isolation and stigma associated with these conditions be appreciated. As a consequence, possibilities for a engagement that is critical Girard's concept were incompletely mined by feminist scholars.

In early 1990s, Terry Robinson and I proposed the incentive-sensitization concept of addiction to explain such‘wanting that is compulsive by combining incentive salience and neural sensitization concepts 9 , 22 The theory will not deny that medication pleasure, withdrawal, or practices are all reasons individuals sometimes just take drugs, but implies that something else, sensitized ‘wanting', may be required in order to know why addiction becomes therefore motivationally compulsive and lasting.

Girard continued to look at the theme of expulsion, in ancientliterature and myths that are primal. The theory that is cognitive the deficit into the executive function is situated on the proof a compromise on the ability of preparing and execution in autism and the similarity between the behavior of those with prefrontal cortical disorder and those with autism: inflexibility, perseverance, primacy of detail and trouble of inhibiting reactions. See reality/hyperreality , (2) artwork are encoded in a way that humans are perhaps not duped into believing which they are reality”, but rather recognize features from their experience that is own of globe inside the work of art that result the representation to seem legitimate and acceptable. The feared possibility of inadvertently consuming through the skin therefore harks back to the discussion of taste above. Every one of them deserves consideration because various responses might use to disorders that are different.

Human culture inhibits the growth of the crisis that is mimetic alsoputting in place taboos, laws, as well as other kinds of sacred differentiationso that the results of mimesis are paid off, therefore slowing the developmentof mimetic crises. The epidemic that is first the sphere of eating problems to attract the eye of this media and scientists was compared to anorexia nervosa among girls. Driven by consumerism, numerous people around the world have unconsciously made a pact that is faustian trading maxims and moral values to secure the unneeded glitter of these mimetic desires.

I would propose, based on medical experience, that this trait does not concern solely anorexia, but bulimia and binge disorder that is eating; that is, the entire spectrum of eating disorders.

Imitatio is a foundation that is non-profit to aiding progress in this ongoing development and review of René Girard's mimetic theory.

Plato sees the musician as an imitator associated with the physical globe him, is already an imitation of the idea people have of this world around him, which, according to. The primary human body associated with the data that'll be collected into the research will be stored as part of the Regional research registry for consuming problems in Western Norway (authorized by the Western Norway Regional Health Authority while the Data Inspectorate that is norwegian). This implication will never be refused by every lover-or indeed every creator-of literature that is imaginative. These teachings that are biblical certainly appropriate for mimetic concept, at minimum in broad strokes.

But he ended up being never a law-giver in literary works and is no longer held as such in our times. It is a crucial concern that addiction exists as comparable to medication addiction or rather is merely a shorthand for eating patterns forced to an extreme 169 - 171 The debate mostly focuses on whether specific addiction processes, such as withdrawal or sensitization, really take place in eating problems. Sickness was described by numerous participants as a cure” for having consumed, especially where that eating is enforced by therapy. An conversation that is extended your family and René Girard's concept of mimetic desire to get beautiful using controversial skin care products is overdue.

This disjuncture, as eating takes place beyond corporeal perimeters, is many plainly noticed in individuals' narratives of cooking for others and watching them eat; this performs eating beyond and among bodies and additionally brings tasting back to the discussion in an way that is intriguing. A Regional Research Database (Western Norway) for eating disorders has been designed, which is located at the SED as a follow-up and extension of this work. The EDE-Q 55 is a 28-item self-report instrument created to measure pathology that is eating.

Mimetic

That was actually, really disturbing … That young woman, who is 20, is clearly profoundly troubled, deeply disturbed … probably has an eating disorder … That was disgusting and embarrassing … I feel terrible … That has been really, actually bad.

In their concept of Mimesis, Plato says that all creative art is mimetic by nature; art is a replica of life. The argument and only epic poetry is situated on the principle that the larger art form is less vulgar and addressed toward a audience that is refined. Sharing their experience that is extensive as of Canada's foremost leaders in conflict resolution, Redekop gets beyond the analysis of mimetic physical violence to suggest paths toward comfort and reconciliation. Pragmatic theories: art conceptualized with regards to its effects on its market, to achieve purposes such as for instance the creation of specific provided experiences. Mimetic Theory plays a role that is key this exemplary and crucial book on Christian identity. Secondly, mimetic concept has been developed through a reading of religious myths and training and associated to a general understanding of exactly how society functions.

Once desire that is mimetic to snowball, you will get entire communities complete of rivalry and strife.

Once re-inscribed on the socio-historical terrain of the late 90s, the individual that is eating-disordered set to just take in a problematic relationship to feminist concept with the publication of Bordo's (1993) Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture while the Body.

But I have always been additionally an eating disorders awareness activist and I additionally have actually to question the disconnect that is extreme Thein's pictures' intention plus the ways that the display will likely be interpreted by the mass market.

We are moststrongly mimetic toward those who we perceive to end up like us. We are less likely to want what they want,return their insults, and so forth if we seethe other as different.

Mimesis (2)

A introduction that is systematic the mimetic concept of the French-American literary theorist and philosophical anthropologist René Girard, this essential text explains its three main pillars (mimetic desire, the scapegoat mechanism, and also the Biblical difference”) with the assistance of examples from literature and philosophy. As nascent kinds of eating emerge and dissolve through these techniques, eating it self is contingently fractured and assembled. The last type of this is pity that is-‘through fear effecting the correct purgation of those and similar emotions'- substantiates the theory of Catharsis. Their concept is that our desires usually do not come entirely they are inspired by the desires of others—by what other people want, what they have, what they do and what they look like from ourselves; rather.

Girard's theory fits well by matching it to literature and the world) with itself, and fits well with the limits of human cognition (allowable complexity) and with what humans might want to do with it (play with it. By launching violence, scapegoating and desire as central to faith, mimetic theory attempts to enhance the emotional, sociological and anthropological measurement of religion. R.A. Scott James has rightly observed To the experts for the arts and specially literature custom has given an place that is independent.

The mimetic qualities that Dickens employed were so practical, in reality, that the name 'Scrooge' has been placed on real-life that is many. As the eating condition had become a stage upon which emancipation that is feminine enacted, a new generation of scholars started to characterize consuming disorders as inauthentic non-beings that has become quarantined. Girard has long argued that, definately not being spontaneous, our many desires that are intimate copied from exactly what we see around us. The rise of eating disorders should be surprise in a culture obsessed with thinness. With the spread of US tradition world-wide, eating disorder and feminism have actually both 'gone global' intensifying and complicating debates about diversity and authenticity. Vygotsky's concept of cultural transmission does maybe not need a ‘why', as Rachel suggests.

The realm of pure Ideas and Forms since art imitates appearances rather than essences, it is two steps removed from the Truth.

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Answer: Mimetic theory is a try to explain humanity's propensity toward physical violence while the mechanisms that are social use to protect culture. As Mitchell got to know, such a concept is a outgrowth that is direct of work of René Girard and, more distantly, of Alexandre Kojève's interpretation of this desire to have recognition plus the ‘fight to the death for pure prestige' in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. A few of them propose that the Freudian Oedipus be reinterpreted as an echo of the delivery upheaval, other people it ought to be reframed within a theory of the paternal Law and of symbolic castration that it be re-evaluated from the perspective of the pre-Oedipal relation to the mother, yet others.

So it exists, it is just as bad—and arguably worse—to "find" it where it does not exist while it is indeed a shame to overlook mimetic desire where. Girard's model tells us that those mimetic desires, if kept unchecked and ungrounded in fact (that they currently are), will lead eventually to interior and chaos that is external indigence, increasing poverty, rising jobless, wars, riots, sporadic physical violence and criminal activity because they are an illusion; fictitious ambitions. From a mimetic reading of fables, Girard claims that most fables originate in this violence that is collective.

Going beyond those cases in which we can identify a clear hysterical-neurotic framework, it has for quite a while been more typical within our field to think about eating problems from the purpose of view regarding the medical approach of holophrasis rather than that of this phallus and the metaphor that is paternal. Conflict is it self a process that is mimetic when opponents fight, they follow highly similar words and gestures and actions, as when they have become increases. Their interests consist of the procedure of mood and anxiety problems along with the role that accessory plays in mental health.

Evans and Miele 2012; Roe 2006), the article traces the countless moments during which meals slip-slides into what we might term, for want of a better word, non-food,” and vice versa, as eatable and edible are drawn into conflict through the (non body that is)eating.

René Girard (1923-2015) is recognized worldwide for his concept of human behavior and culture that is human. Notably, the theory herein advanced holds that an environmental or dietary sourced exposure to a human fetus of these a putative harmful glycine mimetic would probably not follow a dose response curve that is standard. Dialogical discourse allows, in concept at minimum, for the possibility of endless meaning but also, if abstracted through the remainder of life, infinite misunderstanding. It might additionally be highly relevant to think about whether consuming disorders share addictive features of behavior which will help distinguish a compulsion, such as persistence into the real face of adverse expenses or escalation of strength in binge/purge habits (though constraints such as for instance stomach size destination stricter restrictions on intake of food, in contrast to medication intake that is reasonably absolve to escalate). He relates rules of dramatic art to sense that is common to your situations of the viewers.

From participants' narratives it's emerged that not only is food viscerally feared, but additionally that anorexia is maintained by a constant negotiation that is processual of along with not eating. They are presented in a narrative sequence that increasingly problematizes what consuming is and does, as well as its relationship to food and bodies. In order to help expand evaluate the theory herein advanced, selected pharmacologic treatment successes in autism are believed in light of neural proteins that are membrane-embedded neurotransmitters. I think Girard's theory it self would refuse a justification that is utilitarian this. Critique is the creative art of judging the merits and demerits of innovative structure.

According to theory that is mimetic one danger of mimicry is the fact that pupil and teacher becomes competitors as the student approaches and even surpasses the master's skill.

I usually do not think that Girard's theory elucidates the past history of cash, which seems important to becoming human.

Image conjuring indications are indications that elicit the performance of a movement. At the least in concept, we can sketch several alternative possibilities in concept for just how mind reward systems might work in any eating disorder that is particular. The Continuum: Anorexia, Bulimia, and Body Weight Preoccupation.” Consuming Passions: Feminist Methods To Body Weight Preoccupation and Eating Disorder. It may be the Easter joy of the certainty of the victory associated with the cross that I have to keep - perhaps not the despondency of dwelling within the scale of the problem that is mimetic.

The reason of these groups is to consolidate insights that are existing such as for example: the convergence involving the idea of René GIRARD and Bernard LONERGAN, while the fecundity of mimetic concept for brand new paradigms in technology. It is built on the false theory of ‘trickle down economics', whereby, it is known by its advocates (the rich), that the wide range of those at the very top associated with the ladder that is economic trickles down to those during the bottom and thus all benefit. Through these texts that are key eating problems had been projected as a sphere against which the empowerment associated with the feminine could be enacted. Joshua holds a master's degree in Latin and contains taught a number of Classical language and literature courses.

I was not in a position to synthesize Girard's concept with my theory of ritual Girard explicitly rejects the functionalist” interpretation of ritual promulgated by Durkheim, by which rituals and prohibitions are analyzed based on the functions they perform for teams. First, this piece investigates just how the eating disorder became a metaphor that is central the sex equality debates of the 1970s and 1980s. He seeks to spell it out what he observes and gives a theory as to why it happens like that.

Notes On M.H. Abrams's Orientation Of Critical Theories”

In numerous circumstances, psychoanalytic theory offers to mimetic theory crucial insights about family characteristics.

The essays run the gamut of western culture that is literary from Racine and Shakespeare to your existentialist writings of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Additionally, the understanding that is basic of desire, originally obtained from literary works, then transferred to religious motifs, could invigorate the analysis of faith. Each day during CBT-E treatments, the clients complete self-monitoring sheets reporting the times during the dishes, whatever they were eating and drinking, episodes of binge eating and sickness, along with other strategies that are compensatory. As a result, Girard and pupils of their work have not had a way to consider how Kristeva's work illuminates Girard's and shows an augmentation that is important of concept. As eating is no longer confined to an taking that is agential of meals through the mouth, boundaries of inside and exterior are reconfigured. A calorie limitation mimetic is anything that imitates the consequences of calorie limitation without requiring any lowering of calories.

Dialogical discourse allows, the theory is that at the least, for the likelihood of infinite meaning but also, if abstracted through the remainder of life, endless misunderstanding.

It therefore occurs, however, that this theory that is same led to an explicit review of psychoanalysis: as Girard and I myself have argued, the refusal to think about the mainly mimetic character of desire is not only a constant in Freud, it is certainly one of probably the most fundamental presuppositions of his concept.

The second major hypothesis that is contemporary of food contamination, thinks that autism is due to oxidative anxiety, inappropriate methylation and sulphatation problems that reach the brain, provoking what we call autism.

Vomiting was described by many participants as a remedy” for having consumed, particularly where that eating is enforced by treatment.

Terms & Themes

Processional theories: the making of works of art because the creative procedure is an inherently self-contained, self-justifying procedure. Imitatio Imitatio was conceived as a force to press forward the results of René Girard's remarkable insights into human behavior and culture, with goals to: Pursue research and application of Mimetic Theory across the social sciences and critical areas of human behavior; support the education and development of this next generation of scholars leveraging Mimetic Theory; further the dissemination, interpretation and book of key works Mimetic that is incorporating Theory.

Any pupil of literature whom wants to simply take some profitable usage of this critical literature available to him will do well to keep the next terms of Scott James in his mind's eye that he has undertaken to accomplish: It may be a gain to attend to the writer of this critical literature precisely in so far as they are not standing aloof, like magistrate who were never guilty of crime pronouncing dispassionately upon the blamelessness or the misdemeanor of "artist" before he goes on with the task.

Eric Gans takes religion seriously and does formally dismiss or bracket it. However, whether it amounts to anything other than an element of the formal structure of his concept of Eric Gans' generative anthropology is an question that is open me. I am not sure that this is necessary to his theory although he emphasizes the importance of the material referent,” the victim, 38 and has referred in his Anthropoetics columns to the diasparagmos or dismembering and dividing up of the victim. This also refers to consuming natural products like It works greens.

The 3rd stage of the theory that is mimetic formed by Girard's analysis of the writings of biblical revelation.¹ Using the same interpretive lens he used to analyze myths, Girard encountered texts in his study of the Bible that showed a radical difference from the perspective that is mythical.

Theories Of Art

Mimesis means replica (through the Greek, it offers been pronounced both mim-e-sis mim-ay-sis or”). But although ‘all serious scholarship that is modern could have agreed to this point in 1952-3, in 1960 the good thing have not yet reached the recesses of this land and numerous young students of literary works are nevertheless apparently instructed into the concept regarding the ‘tragic flaw; a theory which appears at first sight to be a most convenient unit for analyzing tragedy but which leads the unfortunate individual from it into a quicksand of absurdities by which he rapidly sinks, dragging the tragedies down with him.

Into the contemporary anthropological situation of dualism between mind and body, exasperated by the exposure that is general the mimetic desire of a divine body and of a body that is plastic, manipulable, changeable, interchangeable, the theater and the performing arts have actually the dual function of critique and of proposal, where the development additionally the care regarding the individual people, of the community and of this social body are pursued through utilize your body as well as on the human body, singular and plural.

He ascribes the foundation of art to a normal, universal desire that is human produce imitations, also to derive pleasure from all of these imitations.5 Having rejected the Platonic idea of pure Tips, Aristotle does not denounce art for depicting the sensory realm, producing the many accurate possible pictures of items.”6 Moreover, he does not limit mimesis towards the reproduction that is artistic of things, for tragedy and epic imitate actions and experiences, whereas comedy mimics specific individuals.

It's the Easter joy of the certainty of this success of the cross that I have to keep - perhaps not the despondency of dwelling in the scale of the problem that is mimetic.

This and similar illustrations or explanations are help with, not for his or her sake that is own as an exposition of Plato's concept of ideas, however with a view of showing that poetry and the mimetic arts are worried about a substandard element of the heart and a diminished sort of knowledge. In early 1990s, Terry Robinson and I proposed the incentive-sensitization concept of addiction to explain such‘wanting that is compulsive by combining motivation salience and neural sensitization concepts 9 , 22 The theory will not deny that medication pleasure, withdrawal, or habits are all reasons people often take drugs, but suggests that something different, sensitized ‘wanting', may be required so that you can comprehend why addiction becomes therefore motivationally compulsive and long-lasting.

More generally speaking, relations of lateral recognition in female also as male hysteria had been neglected in favour of Oedipal relations, and quickly everything in psychoanalysis came right down to the mother-child relation (item relations theory) or even to the impact of some trauma that is non-sexual towards the detriment of hysterical sex: ‘Hysteria disappeared” into its psychoanalytic cure” and re-emerged as the injury theories (Recovered Memory syndrome and False Memory problem) of contemporary treatments with infrared saunas'.

Nevertheless, in view of the incidence that is rising of diagnosis, we hold it is time to take into account the concept herein advanced that human fetal neurodevelopment could be modified by contact with periodic doses of a reasonably few of particles of a putative harmful glycine-mimetic.

The self-interested, logical, high priced theory that is signaling/hedonic of that I have actually elaborated goes also further in the Durkheimian direction that Girard rejects.

In this unit we shall try to understand the relationship between critique and Creativity. Mesolimbic mechanisms taking part in food reward, including dopamine, might subscribe to producing obsessive dreads also obsessive desires (maybe such as for example a concentrate on avoiding fat gain and staying thin), and mesolimbic desires and dreads can even co-exist or feed off one another 155 , 172 , 173 Still, eating disorders also probably involve a great deal more elaborate cognitive, psychodynamic, and cultural processes that are simply beyond the scope that is present. Such research was also conducted on using treadmills equipments like proform zt6.

In turn, eating through the skin and eating smells have actually offered up a sense of immateriality that, in line with Alan Latham and Derek McCormack's (2004: 703) talks, sometimes appears much less something defined in opposition to the product, but as that which provides it expressive life and liveliness independent of the human subject.” It is using this interplay between—and simultaneity of—materiality and immateriality as both become food and non-food by eating that the section that is next. And this gives rise to several business ideas like real estate and using technology to make quick, intelligent decisions.

The American Psychiatric Association has reported life time prevalence prices for major disorder that is depressive individuals with eating problems of between 50 % and 75 % 5 past studies that have actually compared comorbidity between AN and mood disorders have produced commonly varying findings, with life time prevalence rates of between 31 percent and 88.9 percent 35 However, these studies have actually not constantly addressed the huge difference between psychological symptoms associated to AN and comorbid psychiatric disorders.

Mimesis is among the earliest and a lot of terms that are central literary, art and media concept. Right here, the empirical-descriptive, self-defined a-theoretical” approach was introduced, which was closely attached to epidemiology plus the testing of this effects of psychotropic medications, which in turn came to characterise it. In 2013, as we shall see later on (APA 2013, pp as you know, we arrived at the fifth edition of the manual, which introduced some changes both to the organisation of the classifications, and to the specific field of eating disorders. 329-360).

There, the basic concept of mimesis was not just about the connection between the job of art and the globe it imitates or represents, but additionally with the producers and receivers of that masterpiece of design along with their reference to the planet.

Welcome to the TARP Grant Project Homepage

Sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation, the Metanexus Institute, and the Travis Research Institute of Fuller Graduate School of Psychology, this two year project brings together some of the world’s most prominent scientists, philosophers, and religious scholars in an attempt to explore current theories of human imitation and their converging implications for contemporary psychosocial, religious, and scientific thought.

In the science of [humanity] and culture today there is a unilateral swerve away from anything that could be called mimicry, imitation, or mimesis. And yet there is nothing, or next to nothing, in human behavior that is not learned, and all learning is based on imitation. If human beings suddenly ceased imitating, all forms of culture would vanish. Neurologists remind us frequently that the human brain is an enormous imitating machine. To develop a science of [humanity] it is necessary to compare human imitation with animal mimicry, and to specify the properly human modalities of mimetic behavior, if they indeed exist. –René Girard, 1978

Imitation is often thought of as a low-level, cognitively undemanding, even childish form of behavior, but recent work across a variety of sciences argues that imitation is a rare ability that is fundamentally linked to characteristically human forms of intelligence, in particular to language, culture, and the ability to understand other minds. This burgeoning body of work has important implications for our understanding of ourselves, both individually and socially. Imitation is not just an important factor in human development, it also has a pervasive influence throughout adulthood in ways we are just beginning to understand... –Susan Hurley & Nick Chater, 2005