Latest / Why We Do What We Do / Imitation Imitation
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
- 0:16Speaker 1: to Why we do what we do. I am your simon,
- 0:19Speaker 1: says host Abraham, and.
- 0:21Speaker 2: I am your simon, says host Shane.
- 0:24Speaker 1: We're a psychology podcast. We talk about all the things
- 0:28Speaker 1: that people do and science and psychology and skepticism, and
- 0:31Speaker 1: sometimes we talk about the things that people do that
- 0:34Speaker 1: then other people do those same things.
- 0:36Speaker 3: Yes, So today we're talking about imitation, which is arguably
- 0:39Speaker 3: one of the most important generalizable skills that humans need.
- 0:44Speaker 2: Like we need this.
- 0:45Speaker 1: Skill, Yeah, it really is, And that is kind of
- 0:48Speaker 1: the purpose of talking about this. This came up in
- 0:51Speaker 1: a discussion we were having about how infants will imitate
- 0:55Speaker 1: the faces and behaviors of the people around them, and
- 0:59Speaker 1: there is a tendon and see to maybe want to
- 1:02Speaker 1: look at the things that they do as part of
- 1:04Speaker 1: their imitations, such as facial imitation, and read into it
- 1:07Speaker 1: emotions and we don't know if they're necessarily experiencing those emotions,
- 1:11Speaker 1: because those emotions can be very complex, right, And it
- 1:14Speaker 1: seems like most people think, most scientists and child psychologists
- 1:18Speaker 1: think they're probably just imitating. And then I wanted to
- 1:21Speaker 1: qualify just imitating by saying just imitating is actually really
- 1:25Speaker 1: important and really good, and so let's do a full
- 1:28Speaker 1: episode on that.
- 1:29Speaker 2: Yes. So here we are.
- 1:31Speaker 1: Yes. And if you're joining us for the first time, welcome,
- 1:34Speaker 1: We're so happy to have you. If you are returning
- 1:36Speaker 1: to us from having listened to us previously, then welcome back,
- 1:40Speaker 1: so happy to have you again.
- 1:42Speaker 2: Love return listeners exactly.
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- 2:01Speaker 1: credit or something.
- 2:02Speaker 3: I don't know, yeah, whatever, just repeat what we're saying
- 2:05Speaker 3: and just I mean, just give us credit, but like,
- 2:06Speaker 3: repeat what we're saying.
- 2:07Speaker 2: And then the people will like us because they like you.
- 2:10Speaker 1: Yeah, it can be why we did what we did,
- 2:12Speaker 1: why we do what they do? Yeah, there you go,
- 2:15Speaker 1: there you go. If you're joining us on the day
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- 4:52Speaker 1: All right, so hopefully you have a chance to celebrate
- 4:55Speaker 1: any or all of those holidays as you see fit.
- 4:58Speaker 1: But we're actually here to talk about other things. That
- 5:01Speaker 1: is the importance of copying what other people do.
- 5:04Speaker 3: Yes, So you know, we're going to talk about kind
- 5:06Speaker 3: of what this means and what it does for us
- 5:09Speaker 3: on a day to day basis. But just a fair warning,
- 5:12Speaker 3: we are going to say the word imitation like at
- 5:15Speaker 3: least a thousand times in this next hour, like easily,
- 5:18Speaker 3: it's gonna come up a lot.
- 5:20Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna say it, then Shane's gonna say it,
- 5:23Speaker 1: then I'm gonna say it again, and we're going to
- 5:26Speaker 1: just keep doing that a lot throughout the entire discussion.
- 5:29Speaker 1: But yeah, we are going to unpack what imitation is,
- 5:33Speaker 1: sort of speak through the definition, why it is important,
- 5:35Speaker 1: and how it does or doesn't develop. And as we
- 5:38Speaker 1: mentioned that, this all sort of started in a previous episode.
- 5:41Speaker 1: We were talking about that infants will imitate facial expressions
- 5:45Speaker 1: to some extent, right, and then we, as I said,
- 5:47Speaker 1: we sort of said, like, you know, they're just imitating,
- 5:50Speaker 1: And really that was just to say, like, rather than
- 5:53Speaker 1: them necessarily expressing those clear emotions, they were imitating other
- 5:57Speaker 1: facial expressions that people make. Now that is also of
- 6:00Speaker 1: infants do make their own facial expressions with respect to
- 6:03Speaker 1: their emotions, like they're not that savvy. You know, they're right,
- 6:06Speaker 1: we're just copying us. They do also have real emotions
- 6:08Speaker 1: that they feel and that they manifest those things. But
- 6:11Speaker 1: just to say that it may have sounded dismissive of imitation,
- 6:14Speaker 1: and then I was actually thinking like that it would
- 6:17Speaker 1: be a fun thing to tackle because it probably sounds
- 6:21Speaker 1: really straightforward, and in many ways it is. But I
- 6:23Speaker 1: think there's some interesting aspects to it that most people
- 6:27Speaker 1: don't necessarily consider, and so we wanted to just unpack
- 6:32Speaker 1: what makes it important, how it works, or why, you know,
- 6:35Speaker 1: people think that it's important with respect to development.
- 6:38Speaker 3: So imitation is familiar enough that probably most people will
- 6:41Speaker 3: likely recognize it.
- 6:42Speaker 2: We know what it is, we know what it looks like,
- 6:43Speaker 2: we know.
- 6:43Speaker 3: How we do it, and even have at least an idea,
- 6:46Speaker 3: if not a fully formed idea of what it is
- 6:48Speaker 3: or what we think it is. So you you probably have,
- 6:51Speaker 3: like I would say, a general idea. You know that
- 6:54Speaker 3: when somebody is imitating you or you are imitating somebody,
- 6:58Speaker 3: what that means and what it is. But it's actually
- 7:00Speaker 3: a little bit more complicated than that, right.
- 7:03Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, very simply put, imitation is when one
- 7:06Speaker 1: thing is like another thing, but is not that thing. Sure,
- 7:10Speaker 1: that's sort of the simplest way to break down what
- 7:12Speaker 1: imitation is. Imitation likely conjures an idea and a lot
- 7:17Speaker 1: of people of kind of inauthenticness. So, for example, imitation
- 7:22Speaker 1: crab is like crab, but is not actually made out
- 7:25Speaker 1: of crab. It is sort of portrayed as crab, even
- 7:28Speaker 1: though that's not what it is. Imitation meat is like meat,
- 7:33Speaker 1: but is not made out of severed animal muscles, although
- 7:36Speaker 1: in some versions imitation meat was still made out of
- 7:39Speaker 1: animal viscera and other by products in historical versions of
- 7:44Speaker 1: imitation meat, so it was like not necessarily made out
- 7:47Speaker 1: of muscles, but was still made out of animals. But
- 7:51Speaker 1: then maybe more contemporary imitation meat is made out of
- 7:55Speaker 1: plants but is intended to be like meat.
- 8:00Speaker 3: Right, So, when we talk about imitation and behavior, though
- 8:03Speaker 3: it's doing it as another does, doing the same thing
- 8:06Speaker 3: that somebody else does, it's mimicking, it's matching, it's copying
- 8:09Speaker 3: some aspect of another person, including their behavior. And mostly
- 8:13Speaker 3: when we talk about that inside of behaviorism, we are
- 8:15Speaker 3: talking about the behavioral part.
- 8:17Speaker 1: Of this, Right, Like, let's go ahead and dig in.
- 8:20Speaker 1: Then if we say it's copying what they do. But
- 8:22Speaker 1: what does it mean? What does that mean to say
- 8:25Speaker 1: that someone is copying or mimicking or matching someone else's behavior.
- 8:30Speaker 1: Let's just sort of talk through an example of why
- 8:33Speaker 1: it's It seems straightforward, but like there are some considerations
- 8:39Speaker 1: to start to ask or to investigate when trying to
- 8:42Speaker 1: discuss if we're clear on what the definition is. Right, So,
- 8:45Speaker 1: let's say someone staples two pieces of paper together, and
- 8:49Speaker 1: someone else who's watching them then staples three pieces of
- 8:52Speaker 1: paper together. Were they imitating? Ooh, that's a good question, right,
- 8:58Speaker 1: So it's it's not exactly the same, but it is similar.
- 9:01Speaker 1: And remember imitation means like not exactly you know, a
- 9:05Speaker 1: non exact fascimile of necessarily right, And we'll get to that. Well, okay,
- 9:10Speaker 1: let's go back to this. What if they do staple
- 9:11Speaker 1: the two pieces of paper together like the first person,
- 9:14Speaker 1: but in the second instance they use their feet to
- 9:17Speaker 1: press the stapler down, assuming that the first person used
- 9:20Speaker 1: their hands. Does the outcome matter or just the form?
- 9:24Speaker 2: Mmmm? That's also a good question.
- 9:26Speaker 1: Like the form of the first one was they did
- 9:28Speaker 1: grab paper staple, they just happened to grab one more
- 9:30Speaker 1: paper and the second one. The outcome was the same.
- 9:33Speaker 1: You had two pieces of paper staple together, but instead
- 9:36Speaker 1: of using their hands, they use their feet. Again, assume
- 9:39Speaker 1: me the first person use their hands. It's like, where
- 9:43Speaker 1: does it? Where is it imitation versus not?
- 9:45Speaker 3: Well, thank you for taking the time to make imitation
- 9:48Speaker 3: more complicated than we thought.
- 9:49Speaker 1: It was so welcome, that's what.
- 9:51Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate that.
- 9:52Speaker 3: Yeah, hey, welcome, welcome to your first time listening to them.
- 9:55Speaker 2: Why we do what we do? We take things, we
- 9:56Speaker 2: make them more complicated than it needs to be. No,
- 9:59Speaker 2: but to think about this is if.
- 10:00Speaker 3: You saw a person A do a thing and then
- 10:02Speaker 3: saw a person B do a thing, and you can
- 10:05Speaker 3: report that what person B did was similar enough as
- 10:08Speaker 3: to be considered generally identical to person A, then person
- 10:11Speaker 3: B was imitating that person imitating PERSONA. That is, what
- 10:15Speaker 3: one person does is similar, for inform, to what another
- 10:18Speaker 3: person does. So, going back to kind of that example,
- 10:20Speaker 3: I would say stapling the three papers was probably similar.
- 10:23Speaker 3: Stapling with your feet not so much.
- 10:25Speaker 1: I think that most people would tend to agree with
- 10:28Speaker 1: that for the most part. And so really what that
- 10:30Speaker 1: means is that mostly imitation is topographically, which is to say,
- 10:35Speaker 1: formally or visually similar in appearance, although imitation can be
- 10:40Speaker 1: a broad category, and there is imitation that has no
- 10:44Speaker 1: visual component. So a sibling whose younger siblings starts playing
- 10:48Speaker 1: the same instrument as them might say that the younger
- 10:51Speaker 1: sibling is just copying them, or maybe maybe even say
- 10:55Speaker 1: what imitating them, even though they might not be playing
- 10:58Speaker 1: the same songs becase because one person's sort of general
- 11:02Speaker 1: pattern activity was picked up an instrument, and the other
- 11:06Speaker 1: person's behavior was and also picked up the same instrument
- 11:10Speaker 1: as a like activity, as a hobby, maybe as like
- 11:14Speaker 1: a thing to learn, And you might call that imitation,
- 11:17Speaker 1: even though nothing they do looks exactly like what the
- 11:20Speaker 1: first one does. It's sort of thematically on point, if
- 11:24Speaker 1: that makes sense.
- 11:25Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean and I can see that too.
- 11:28Speaker 2: I remember.
- 11:29Speaker 3: I remember when I was a kid, I wanted to
- 11:31Speaker 3: play guitar, so I got a guitar because I wanted
- 11:34Speaker 3: to copy Green Day. So I wanted to learn Green
- 11:36Speaker 3: Day songs, and my instructor wanted to teach me blues songs.
- 11:40Speaker 3: And I was mad that I was not allowed to
- 11:42Speaker 3: play Green Day songs. So I was like, I hate this.
- 11:45Speaker 3: I don't like it.
- 11:45Speaker 2: I don't want to play it, and I stopp playing guitar.
- 11:47Speaker 3: So I stopped imitating Green Day because I could not
- 11:49Speaker 3: imitate Green Day.
- 11:50Speaker 2: I was not allowed to.
- 11:50Speaker 1: It was actually funny is that some of the earliest
- 11:55Speaker 1: songs I learned to play on drums were also Green
- 11:57Speaker 1: Day songs.
- 11:58Speaker 2: You know, Dray Cool was a great drummer.
- 12:00Speaker 3: People don't realize how like technical he really is when
- 12:03Speaker 3: you get when you really listen to him, he's actually
- 12:05Speaker 3: really good.
- 12:06Speaker 1: He's very consistent too, like he yes, yeah, all right.
- 12:11Speaker 1: So that was our sidebar on Green Day. But we
- 12:17Speaker 1: were talking about imitation, and as I mentioned here, in
- 12:20Speaker 1: this example of like where one sibling starts playing trombone
- 12:23Speaker 1: and then their younger sibling is like, oh, I'm going
- 12:25Speaker 1: to play trombone too, like you could even you might
- 12:27Speaker 1: describe what they're doing as imitating the first person's behavior.
- 12:31Speaker 1: And again, it doesn't necessarily need to be the exact
- 12:35Speaker 1: same things inside of that pattern if the pattern in
- 12:38Speaker 1: general is the same, and neither does the imitation need
- 12:41Speaker 1: to be perfectly exact. For example, when I was a
- 12:45Speaker 1: very young child, I have the story my mom loves
- 12:47Speaker 1: to tell of we were at a cabin. My uncle
- 12:49Speaker 1: was out chopping wood. I went out with a stick
- 12:52Speaker 1: and I started whacking nearby logs, and I was sort
- 12:55Speaker 1: of imitating his chopping behavior. But they were not going
- 12:58Speaker 1: to give a little four year old and acts. Understandably,
- 13:02Speaker 1: I have no memory of this, but I think that
- 13:05Speaker 1: probably I had no intention of actually trying to chop.
- 13:08Speaker 1: I was going through the motions of what he was doing, sure,
- 13:11Speaker 1: and so very different outcome, arguably very different form, but
- 13:15Speaker 1: sort of similar enough that I was it was like
- 13:18Speaker 1: what he was doing, so it was imitation.
- 13:20Speaker 3: Yeah, So I mean essentially, maybe one way to think
- 13:22Speaker 3: about this is, and we'll keep unpacking this, but one
- 13:24Speaker 3: way to think of it as like, the behavior looks
- 13:28Speaker 3: the same, but it doesn't necessarily rely on the outcome
- 13:30Speaker 3: to be the same. So in that scenario, you were imitating,
- 13:33Speaker 3: but you didn't produce the same outcome even though it
- 13:35Speaker 3: looked similar. And like, eventually you might transfer that skill
- 13:39Speaker 3: into and I'm sure we'll talk about this, you'll transfer
- 13:41Speaker 3: that skill into a real life situation, but you didn't
- 13:45Speaker 3: have to to imitate.
- 13:46Speaker 1: Yes, exactly right. Yeah, it is like it was a
- 13:49Speaker 1: step in the development of a skill or like an
- 13:53Speaker 1: overall repertoire like skill set that is necessary for me
- 13:58Speaker 1: to have, unlike how it is unnecessary to have ads. Okay,
- 14:09Speaker 1: we're back. So there is sort of a more scientifically
- 14:15Speaker 1: if you will, technical way of unpacking then how we
- 14:19Speaker 1: would talk about imitation that relates both to its sort
- 14:22Speaker 1: of function and form, which is that when our behavior
- 14:27Speaker 1: comes under the influence of the correspondence between our actions
- 14:32Speaker 1: and another's actions. Essentially, sure, that is, the more closely
- 14:35Speaker 1: we perceive our behavior to match another person's, the more
- 14:38Speaker 1: successful we feel. That's essentially what imitation is. We are
- 14:42Speaker 1: approximating in some version what someone else's behavior is like,
- 14:47Speaker 1: and then we are essentially matching it to the best
- 14:50Speaker 1: of our ability, and as close as we feel we
- 14:53Speaker 1: have gotten then we are sort of like, yes, I
- 14:55Speaker 1: have successfully imitated this thing. Now again, is really not
- 14:59Speaker 1: that explicit, like almost none of us will imitate someone
- 15:02Speaker 1: else and then go, yes, I have successfully imitated this thing.
- 15:04Speaker 1: That's not really the thought that happens, right right, just
- 15:08Speaker 1: just the feeling of Essentially the idea is, try to
- 15:11Speaker 1: make our behavior like that behavior, and as we perceive
- 15:14Speaker 1: that being like that behavior, then we that's essentially what
- 15:18Speaker 1: the goal was, right, and so we're like, oh sweet,
- 15:20Speaker 1: you know, like I'm copying this thing to copy it
- 15:23Speaker 1: and then move on to whatever the next thing I'm
- 15:25Speaker 1: going to do is.
- 15:26Speaker 2: Right, right, right?
- 15:28Speaker 3: So the question you have to ask, I think part
- 15:30Speaker 3: as part of this, because we are talking about outcomes
- 15:32Speaker 3: of this too, is how do you know you've imitated correctly?
- 15:34Speaker 2: So often we can see that our.
- 15:36Speaker 3: Limbs move, and we might be able to glean that
- 15:38Speaker 3: the perspectives we have of our limbs are similar to
- 15:41Speaker 3: that of our model, the model being the person that
- 15:43Speaker 3: we're imitating. But what about facial expressions? How can we tell,
- 15:46Speaker 3: particularly as we are just developing the muscles to make
- 15:49Speaker 3: these movements, whether our face looks like someone else's. This
- 15:53Speaker 3: applies the broader question how do we come to imitate?
- 15:57Speaker 3: How do we get to that space of imitating?
- 16:00Speaker 1: Yes, is this something that we are just biologically prepared
- 16:04Speaker 1: to do and we just imitate not necessarily. We obviously
- 16:08Speaker 1: have the capacity to do it, So there is an
- 16:11Speaker 1: aspect of our biology that facilitates it, but it is
- 16:14Speaker 1: going to develop along a specific sort of trajectory. Now
- 16:17Speaker 1: that being said, imitation is likely and evolutionarily developed tendency,
- 16:22Speaker 1: and it is advantageous for our species to be able
- 16:26Speaker 1: to do as other members of our species does. And
- 16:29Speaker 1: actually several species have versions of this where they can
- 16:33Speaker 1: imitate one another and that is part of their learning
- 16:36Speaker 1: is watching what another one of their species does and
- 16:39Speaker 1: then trying it themselves. And so there's a lot of
- 16:43Speaker 1: advantages to having this be at least having the capacity
- 16:47Speaker 1: to learn how to do this right.
- 16:49Speaker 3: Absolutely so, humans have berths on the more extreme altricial
- 16:53Speaker 3: end of the spectrum of altricial to precocial offspring, and
- 16:58Speaker 3: we are especially cooperative. Further, it is much more efficient
- 17:02Speaker 3: to learn from observation rather than trial and error, particularly
- 17:06Speaker 3: when you have the pathetic biological defenses and weapons that
- 17:09Speaker 3: we do. We are soft marshmallow people that are very
- 17:14Speaker 3: easily eaten and destroyed in nature, so we have to
- 17:19Speaker 3: have other defenses and this is maybe one of the things,
- 17:22Speaker 3: and like being able to learn rapidly from observing things
- 17:26Speaker 3: is actually one of the great our greatest traits.
- 17:29Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. We are slow, squishy and do not
- 17:32Speaker 1: have sharp parts and have very small forward facing mouths.
- 17:36Speaker 1: The only way we are going to survive is if
- 17:39Speaker 1: we can learn very very fast, and we do and
- 17:43Speaker 1: it has been to our great advantage and disadvantage in
- 17:46Speaker 1: many ways. Yes, yes, yes, yes, but we appreciate it.
- 17:49Speaker 3: Abraham, I have a question for you though, Yes, what
- 17:52Speaker 3: is altricial? This is the first time I have ever
- 17:55Speaker 3: in my life heard that word.
- 17:57Speaker 4: Time.
- 18:00Speaker 1: Great question. Yeah, so altricial has to do It was
- 18:04Speaker 1: kind of You can get a little bit the definition
- 18:07Speaker 1: understanding what precocial means, but altrical means. That refers to
- 18:12Speaker 1: how animals are born and how helpless they are, so
- 18:16Speaker 1: on the particularly altricial end of the spectrum, babies that
- 18:20Speaker 1: are very very helpless, and humans are pretty far on
- 18:22Speaker 1: that spectrum. We pretty much have to completely care for
- 18:26Speaker 1: and spend all of our time caring for infants right
- 18:29Speaker 1: as they're born. But some species, many fish, drafts, there
- 18:34Speaker 1: are many birds. There are species that are born and
- 18:38Speaker 1: they essentially can start taking care of themselves almost immediately.
- 18:42Speaker 2: Like sharks, snakes.
- 18:44Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yes, exactly right. And so they're born and
- 18:48Speaker 1: those are called precocial, meaning that they're born basically very early.
- 18:52Speaker 1: They are ready to start learning from their environment and
- 18:56Speaker 1: they can start fending for themselves. So humans are an
- 18:59Speaker 1: ultra species because we are born very very helpless and
- 19:03Speaker 1: require a lot of dependence from our parents. And like
- 19:08Speaker 1: many species are across the spectrum there. Some are just
- 19:10Speaker 1: as electrical as ours. Some of them are like born
- 19:13Speaker 1: completely independent and ready to go. Yeah, part of the
- 19:16Speaker 1: social aspect of how we have evolved as a species
- 19:20Speaker 1: likely comes from the fact that we have to care
- 19:22Speaker 1: for our young.
- 19:22Speaker 3: So the word precocious comes from prococial obviously, like that,
- 19:25Speaker 3: it's in that world. So if you've met a precocious child,
- 19:27Speaker 3: then you're basically saying, like, this person is like one
- 19:30Speaker 3: of those kids. It's like an old for their age
- 19:32Speaker 3: type of situation, you know, very mature for your age.
- 19:35Speaker 3: You're precocious. That's a way to say that. Yeah, But
- 19:37Speaker 3: I feel like altricial is a really good insult that
- 19:39Speaker 3: you can throw at people that wouldn't know what it meant.
- 19:42Speaker 1: There you go, altricial of you, We're spawning new ways
- 19:49Speaker 1: to criticize people. Love it.
- 19:51Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that'd be really fun.
- 19:53Speaker 3: So if you have like an enemy of yours, you
- 19:55Speaker 3: can throw that out there and like, first of all,
- 19:57Speaker 3: you're gonna make them go, what does that And they're
- 19:59Speaker 3: gonna be like really twisted about that. And then also
- 20:02Speaker 3: they're going to go look it up and they're gonna
- 20:04Speaker 3: go ooh.
- 20:06Speaker 1: D If you walk away from this episode with nothing else,
- 20:11Speaker 1: it is that you should start calling people electricial.
- 20:15Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, so you're welcome that so yes, yeah
- 20:18Speaker 3: as an insult.
- 20:19Speaker 2: Yes. So here's the thing, though, how this idea, how
- 20:23Speaker 2: all is developed?
- 20:24Speaker 3: That we're talking about, this idea of imitation, right, how
- 20:27Speaker 3: it all developed not entirely understood. So PJA noted that
- 20:30Speaker 3: the that imitation is a foundational skill that begins to
- 20:33Speaker 3: develop within the first year and.
- 20:35Speaker 2: By eight to twelve months for most infants.
- 20:37Speaker 3: Most infants by the time they're one could imitate and
- 20:40Speaker 3: imitate quite a few things.
- 20:42Speaker 1: Yeah, there were some early studies that suggested that, and
- 20:47Speaker 1: their data seemed to indicate that even newborn infants would
- 20:50Speaker 1: begin imitating within hours of birth. However, later and more
- 20:54Speaker 1: well better designed studies were unable to replicate that finding.
- 20:59Speaker 1: It does seem more universal that imitation develops a little
- 21:02Speaker 1: bit later, like sort of at that eight to twelve
- 21:04Speaker 1: months range, and is not really prepackaged out of the womb.
- 21:07Speaker 1: One thing that many people know and many people will
- 21:10Speaker 1: not know is that babies are born with extraordinarily poor
- 21:13Speaker 1: eyesight that gets better fairly rapidly, but everything is just
- 21:17Speaker 1: a blurry haze to them initially, so the ability to
- 21:20Speaker 1: imitate would be hampered to some extent by what they
- 21:23Speaker 1: would be able to see. And of course, babies who
- 21:25Speaker 1: are born with visual impairments altogether, they'll probably not pick
- 21:28Speaker 1: up motor imitation directly by observation.
- 21:31Speaker 3: Right, And so as with all development, time is likely
- 21:34Speaker 3: a minor, if not almost a relevant factor. I think
- 21:37Speaker 3: a lot of times people think development is based on time.
- 21:40Speaker 3: We what time ultimately is is time is just exposure
- 21:44Speaker 3: to more learning opportunities. Yeah, typically, so that's really what
- 21:47Speaker 3: happens inside of that, right, So, like the reason people
- 21:49Speaker 3: gain skills over time is because they have had a
- 21:52Speaker 3: period where they have been exposed to learning opportunities. That's
- 21:55Speaker 3: really it. So if time were the only factor, or
- 21:57Speaker 3: we could stick a chout in a box and never
- 22:00Speaker 3: interact with them, only feeding them through to for eight months,
- 22:02Speaker 3: and once they're released, they would be imitating. And this
- 22:05Speaker 3: is unlikely to happen, and even less likely that someone
- 22:07Speaker 3: would conduct that experiment, thank the Lord. But like it's
- 22:11Speaker 3: one of those things where at the end of the day,
- 22:13Speaker 3: everybody thinks like just people happen to learn because they
- 22:16Speaker 3: get older. They learn because over time they've been exposed
- 22:20Speaker 3: to more information, yeah, or more learning opportunities.
- 22:23Speaker 1: Right. With time comes, as you mentioned, opportunities to practice,
- 22:26Speaker 1: and if those opportunities don't present themselves, then they won't
- 22:30Speaker 1: have an opportunity to learn. Right, You could cram more
- 22:33Speaker 1: opportunities or fewer into that amount of time, and that
- 22:36Speaker 1: will influence how much they learn in that amount of time. Right,
- 22:39Speaker 1: So yeah, exactly, Okay, So yeah, we don't really need
- 22:43Speaker 1: to do that experiment of locking a child in a
- 22:46Speaker 1: box to see if they pop out being able to imitate.
- 22:49Speaker 1: We wouldn't, but we also don't need to. Research has
- 22:51Speaker 1: shown that children start imitating sooner and more robustly if
- 22:55Speaker 1: there is one specific factor in place, and that is
- 23:00Speaker 1: is if someone else is yeah, humans, if if someone
- 23:04Speaker 1: else is imitating them. First, I thought this is really
- 23:08Speaker 1: interesting when I was learning about this, because the imitation
- 23:11Speaker 1: dynamic is one in which caregivers of a child will
- 23:15Speaker 1: imitate the child's sounds, their movements, their facial expressions. And
- 23:19Speaker 1: it actually makes a lot of sense then because then
- 23:22Speaker 1: we start to think that as the child's behavior is
- 23:25Speaker 1: affecting those around them, they have the child is like,
- 23:30Speaker 1: they do something and then someone else does something exactly
- 23:33Speaker 1: like what they just did, right, So they're learning like
- 23:36Speaker 1: I can make that giant puppet over there do what
- 23:39Speaker 1: I want. That they start to influence behavior of others
- 23:42Speaker 1: relatively consistently, then they will also start to develop the
- 23:46Speaker 1: sort of social cohesion aspect of this that so if
- 23:50Speaker 1: I do X, they do X right, and so if
- 23:53Speaker 1: they do X, I do X two right. It's like
- 23:56Speaker 1: I would go blah blah blah blah, and then the
- 23:59Speaker 1: person that goes b blah blah blah blah, and then
- 24:01Speaker 1: when unprompted they just do it to me. They gol
- 24:03Speaker 1: blah blah blah blahlah, And I'm like, ah, I know
- 24:05Speaker 1: that one lah and so and so I just copyed
- 24:11Speaker 1: what they did, and so the bidirectional relationship begins to exist.
- 24:14Speaker 1: So it does make a lot of sense, I think philosophically,
- 24:17Speaker 1: to think that first they learn that they can influence
- 24:19Speaker 1: their environment, and then they can then respond to that
- 24:23Speaker 1: environment in a way that it's predictably corresponded to how
- 24:26Speaker 1: they've learned to influence it already.
- 24:28Speaker 2: Right, absolutely, so.
- 24:29Speaker 3: Further studies have found that the person actually doesn't matter,
- 24:33Speaker 3: not as much as we originally thought. That is, the
- 24:36Speaker 3: infant is likely to imitate a stranger as likely to
- 24:39Speaker 3: imitate a stranger, I should say, as they are to
- 24:41Speaker 3: imitate their parents. Although I'd imagine this is at least
- 24:45Speaker 3: partially influenced by how many people the different child the
- 24:47Speaker 3: child will like, how many different people the child will
- 24:49Speaker 3: regularly interact with.
- 24:51Speaker 2: They'll contact so.
- 24:52Speaker 3: Many people, especially early, especially if there's a lot of
- 24:55Speaker 3: family around. There are so many faces and so many
- 24:58Speaker 3: different faces. Right, But again, we're not going to do
- 25:01Speaker 3: that study. That's really hard to do that study. And
- 25:03Speaker 3: we really shouldn't be exposing babies to strangers all the time.
- 25:07Speaker 2: You don't really need to do that.
- 25:08Speaker 1: Well, or the reverse of that, which is like, let's
- 25:11Speaker 1: not expose them to any different people and then see
- 25:14Speaker 1: if they still learn to imitate. Yeah, yeah, No, we
- 25:18Speaker 1: don't need to.
- 25:18Speaker 3: It's not gonna be helpful to get the answer to
- 25:21Speaker 3: the question that we can kind of already interpret.
- 25:24Speaker 2: We can do an interpretive analysis of that.
- 25:26Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, the ends do not justify the means.
- 25:30Speaker 3: Mm hm.
- 25:31Speaker 1: The podcast does not justify the ads.
- 25:34Speaker 4: Ah boo, Okay, we're back hey so fast, yes.
- 25:50Speaker 1: The uh and talking here about essentially how how we
- 25:54Speaker 1: would learn about these things from imitation or learn about
- 25:57Speaker 1: imitation as you said, Like, we don't need to do
- 25:59Speaker 1: that study where we specifically change those variables. What we
- 26:03Speaker 1: can do is we can observe what already happens, and
- 26:05Speaker 1: we can start to interpret from that, but also like
- 26:08Speaker 1: fit it inside the philosophical conceptual narrative that would make
- 26:13Speaker 1: sense to help to unpack and make sense of the
- 26:16Speaker 1: observations that we're able to make without necessarily making that
- 26:19Speaker 1: direct manipulation to someone's life and circumstance. Right, But again,
- 26:25Speaker 1: if we think about the fact that imitation is one
- 26:28Speaker 1: of the earliest things that we do, that is part
- 26:31Speaker 1: of an important dynamic process by which an infant learns
- 26:34Speaker 1: that they can change their environment and then they can
- 26:36Speaker 1: respond to those same changes in their environment. Imitation is
- 26:41Speaker 1: a skill that can sort of broadly be categorized as
- 26:45Speaker 1: a behavioral cusp. Oh, and that's something that will likely
- 26:49Speaker 1: need to unpack and a full length treatment as a
- 26:53Speaker 1: discussion in the future. But let's talk about a behavioral cusp.
- 26:57Speaker 3: Yeah, so briefly, and this is going to be funny
- 27:00Speaker 3: because I was just in Hawaii and I did do
- 27:02Speaker 3: my supervision talk and I did comment about how I
- 27:05Speaker 3: had no idea what these were because I can never
- 27:09Speaker 3: get them straight between behavioral cusps and pivotal behavior, and
- 27:11Speaker 3: I just always am like, so I'm thankful for this
- 27:13Speaker 3: note from you. Yeah, that I can read, because I
- 27:17Speaker 3: would have been if you'd have told me what a
- 27:18Speaker 3: behavioral coustp is, I'd have been like.
- 27:19Speaker 2: It's a concept.
- 27:21Speaker 1: So it is a concept.
- 27:24Speaker 2: It is a concept.
- 27:25Speaker 3: So briefly, a behavioral cusp means that once we learn
- 27:28Speaker 3: to imitate, we can start doing much broader of a
- 27:31Speaker 3: much broader range of skills. Once a baby can stand,
- 27:34Speaker 3: the range of new things they can do expands immediately.
- 27:37Speaker 3: They can walk, they can run, they can juke, they
- 27:40Speaker 3: can jive, they can dance, they can do all those
- 27:42Speaker 3: things from their feet.
- 27:44Speaker 1: Indeed, So yeah, and I mean, a behavioral cusp does
- 27:47Speaker 1: not have to be imitation exactly. But the important thing
- 27:51Speaker 1: here is just recognizing that what we mean when we
- 27:54Speaker 1: talk about something being a behavioral cusp is that the
- 27:57Speaker 1: development of that repertoire means there is a pretty large
- 28:01Speaker 1: range of new possible skills and reinforcers that one can
- 28:05Speaker 1: learn and then access right in that order. Like I said,
- 28:09Speaker 1: we'll impact that more broadly in a subsequent discussion that
- 28:13Speaker 1: I definitely look forward to having, but for now, just
- 28:16Speaker 1: understanding that it just means, like when you can learn
- 28:19Speaker 1: to imitate, and you can kind of imitate anything, generally,
- 28:23Speaker 1: you can start to do a lot of things that
- 28:26Speaker 1: you couldn't do before.
- 28:28Speaker 3: Right exactly, So when it comes to imitation and language,
- 28:32Speaker 3: which I really love, babies can start to imitate some
- 28:35Speaker 3: of the language sounds that they're exposed to very very early.
- 28:38Speaker 3: And I love this too because I have actually have
- 28:41Speaker 3: a story about this. So when my daughter was little,
- 28:44Speaker 3: my ex wife was insistent on making sure that the
- 28:48Speaker 3: first word that she said was mom okay or like mama,
- 28:51Speaker 3: sure right, So she was always in my daughter's face.
- 28:54Speaker 2: Was go mama, say mama, mama, and like always doing
- 28:57Speaker 2: that and.
- 28:57Speaker 3: Exposing here to that, and of course for word was
- 29:00Speaker 3: deada and that, you know, the petty side of me
- 29:05Speaker 3: felt pretty good about that. The scientist side of that
- 29:08Speaker 3: understood that, like the sound dada is easier to say
- 29:11Speaker 3: than mama, So like I was, I also realized that
- 29:14Speaker 3: it wasn't personal, but it felt personal, and that felt
- 29:17Speaker 3: pretty good. So when it comes to language in general,
- 29:20Speaker 3: though the sounds part can be easy, and the sense
- 29:23Speaker 3: of there is often clear, immediate feedback that does not
- 29:26Speaker 3: require perspective to tell if our sounds match other sounds,
- 29:29Speaker 3: it is difficult in the sense that controlling those sounds
- 29:32Speaker 3: and the order in which they go and relating them
- 29:34Speaker 3: to meaningful relating them meaningfully to the world is enormously
- 29:38Speaker 3: complex because language is enormously complex, and it does require
- 29:42Speaker 3: a boatload of cognitive development. So language and verbalization and
- 29:46Speaker 3: all that verbal behavior is far more complex just than
- 29:50Speaker 3: just going, oh, here's then antisy and here's a behavior
- 29:52Speaker 3: as a consequence, right, it does require a lot more
- 29:55Speaker 3: piecing the world together, a lot more environmental circumstances, a
- 29:58Speaker 3: lot more things going on.
- 30:00Speaker 1: Well it's shaping, right. So you can imagine if you're
- 30:03Speaker 1: able to more or less imitate the sounds you hear,
- 30:06Speaker 1: but you don't know what they mean or even that
- 30:09Speaker 1: they mean anything, you would essentially be babbling right right.
- 30:13Speaker 1: That is, in fact exactly what babies do. If you
- 30:16Speaker 1: right now try to imitate another language that you knew
- 30:18Speaker 1: the general sounds of, but you didn't know the language.
- 30:22Speaker 1: You would more or less sound like a baby, allbeit
- 30:24Speaker 1: one with a very deep voice babbling in that language.
- 30:27Speaker 2: Yeah, and also maybe offensive.
- 30:29Speaker 1: Yeah, and also using the cadence of the language that
- 30:35Speaker 1: you do already speak. So like, let's stay Shane, how
- 30:38Speaker 1: much French do you know?
- 30:39Speaker 2: I know? None? Like okay, like functionally none, I know
- 30:43Speaker 2: we I know bonjour.
- 30:47Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 30:47Speaker 2: I used to know pineapple, but I don't remember that
- 30:50Speaker 2: anymore either.
- 30:51Speaker 1: All right, let's just say that you were sort of
- 30:53Speaker 1: particularly well, maybe not pretend to be a baby, but
- 30:56Speaker 1: let's just say you were trying to just say a
- 30:58Speaker 1: bunch of French words without knowing a bunch of those
- 31:01Speaker 1: French words, just making it sounds of but yeah, go
- 31:03Speaker 1: for it, okay.
- 31:06Speaker 2: Vulu l.
- 31:10Speaker 1: So that's what I would assume. There were some actual
- 31:13Speaker 1: words in there. What you mostly said was nonsense, But
- 31:18Speaker 1: you are close to asking me to go to bed
- 31:20Speaker 1: with you.
- 31:21Speaker 3: Listen, Mulan rouge has been stuck in my head for
- 31:23Speaker 3: the last three months.
- 31:24Speaker 1: So so yeah, like if you're just saying, like I
- 31:28Speaker 1: think someone might go like shoot blue and like they're
- 31:32Speaker 1: sort of it sounds like they're babbling and they're sort
- 31:34Speaker 1: of trying to imitate some of the affects and sounds
- 31:36Speaker 1: that are in there. But again, that's essentially what babies
- 31:39Speaker 1: are doing, like right now. The sequence of those sounds
- 31:42Speaker 1: don't really matter to them. They don't have any meaningful
- 31:45Speaker 1: association with anything. It's just sort of making the sounds.
- 31:48Speaker 1: So they so they babble, and that makes a lot
- 31:50Speaker 1: of sense.
- 31:51Speaker 2: I do too.
- 31:53Speaker 3: So I, like I said, functionally useless in French, functionally useless,
- 31:58Speaker 3: I know, not enough great, Okay, So it is unlikely
- 32:01Speaker 3: that language develops sooner than motor movement or motor imitation,
- 32:04Speaker 3: I should say so, like, like you know, language is
- 32:08Speaker 3: more complex, but maybe hand movements and kind of doing
- 32:10Speaker 3: that kind of stuff might be a little bit easier.
- 32:12Speaker 3: So motor movements, particularly gross motor movements, are often functional
- 32:17Speaker 3: because you've got people, You've got babies that can like
- 32:19Speaker 3: bring cups to their mouths or like feed themselves, bring
- 32:22Speaker 3: food to their mouths, and they don't need to carry
- 32:24Speaker 3: any broader conditive meeting. They work, and they work for
- 32:26Speaker 3: that baby, that work for that infant period. So establishing
- 32:30Speaker 3: a rich history of imitation with motor movements may actually
- 32:33Speaker 3: support the development of language imitation, assuming the child begins
- 32:36Speaker 3: to develop a generalized imitation repertoire or they can generally
- 32:40Speaker 3: imitate you. They can just copy stuff, no matter what
- 32:44Speaker 3: it is.
- 32:44Speaker 1: Like.
- 32:44Speaker 3: It could be something completely arbitrary like wave your hand,
- 32:47Speaker 3: touch your nose, put your hands over your head, grab
- 32:49Speaker 3: your ears, it could be all of those things. If
- 32:51Speaker 3: they can copy multiple behaviors like that, and they have
- 32:54Speaker 3: like a good generalized skill, they're going to pick up
- 32:56Speaker 3: some other things pretty quickly.
- 32:58Speaker 1: Yeah. Vocal imitation all so though, has the added burden
- 33:01Speaker 1: that it often requires a complex set of lip, tongue,
- 33:06Speaker 1: mouth and air pressure modulation, some movements of the lips,
- 33:10Speaker 1: tongue and mouth, and that air pressure modulation to produce
- 33:13Speaker 1: any given sound, let alone a rapid series of sounds
- 33:17Speaker 1: that form a word. Like if you try and unpack
- 33:20Speaker 1: even a single word, there's often many different types of
- 33:23Speaker 1: sounds in there, and it requires that you are pushing
- 33:25Speaker 1: air through in a steady stream and manipulating your vocal cords,
- 33:29Speaker 1: manipulating your tongue, your mouth, your teeth often and a
- 33:33Speaker 1: child cannot easily observe how those sounds are produced. So
- 33:36Speaker 1: it takes a lot of trial and error and attempting
- 33:39Speaker 1: various mouth tongue, lip vocal cord manipulations before they start
- 33:43Speaker 1: sounding like the sounds that they're trying to make right,
- 33:47Speaker 1: and it's like it's all new to them. So it's
- 33:49Speaker 1: just a matter of like they just got to work
- 33:50Speaker 1: through it. They just got to try, like what if
- 33:52Speaker 1: I do this, What if I do this? What if
- 33:54Speaker 1: I do this? And eventually the circumstances will be such
- 33:57Speaker 1: that it will start to match what they hear in
- 34:00Speaker 1: the world, and then they can they can replicate whatever
- 34:03Speaker 1: like lip mouth tongue vocal cord arrangement it took to
- 34:07Speaker 1: make that imitation and then could start to develop. But
- 34:09Speaker 1: you can see why that would be so much harder.
- 34:11Speaker 1: With those motor movements, they can just kind of do it.
- 34:13Speaker 1: They can say like, will you put your arm up?
- 34:14Speaker 1: I put my arm up. Look they look the same, yeah,
- 34:17Speaker 1: But with vocal imitation, they can't even see how you're
- 34:20Speaker 1: making this sound. They just got to mess around with
- 34:22Speaker 1: making sounds until they figure out how to do it.
- 34:24Speaker 3: And also, too, vocal imitation and vocal language gets a
- 34:28Speaker 3: lot of feedback, like a lot of feedback as time
- 34:31Speaker 3: goes on, right, So like if they don't get the
- 34:33Speaker 3: sound right away, you'll hear I mean, if you spend
- 34:37Speaker 3: any time around a parent with a toddler and the
- 34:40Speaker 3: toddler is learning language or like the language is kind
- 34:43Speaker 3: of early in early stages, and they say something kind
- 34:45Speaker 3: of incorrect, like they say the word. You get the
- 34:47Speaker 3: gist of it, but it's like kind of incorrect. You'll
- 34:50Speaker 3: hear a parent correct and like have the person maybe
- 34:52Speaker 3: have the child like maybe try to correct the word
- 34:55Speaker 3: or try again or something like that.
- 34:56Speaker 2: But like when my daughter was younger, she used to
- 34:59Speaker 2: say clit and she used to say cute it, which
- 35:03Speaker 2: is so cute, and.
- 35:04Speaker 3: Then she would also say calipitter and so like, you know,
- 35:09Speaker 3: my wife and I talked about this.
- 35:10Speaker 2: We were like, well, we're not gonna change that because
- 35:12Speaker 2: that's adorable.
- 35:13Speaker 3: Yeah, but we should probably work on changing it just
- 35:15Speaker 3: in case, right, because like you're gonna hear that a lot.
- 35:17Speaker 3: You're gonna hear toddler's like get close but not quite,
- 35:19Speaker 3: and then you'll hear parents like do minor corrections when
- 35:22Speaker 3: that word comes up.
- 35:23Speaker 1: I sort of have a vague memory of my younger
- 35:25Speaker 1: siblings trying to learn refrigerator and always saying like fligilator.
- 35:29Speaker 2: Uh huh yep. My brother still says woof like the
- 35:33Speaker 2: pack of wolves. Oh okay, yeah yeah. Oh, by the way,
- 35:38Speaker 2: my brother's a dog.
- 35:39Speaker 3: So to support vocal imitation and vocal development, it's generally
- 35:43Speaker 3: recommended to talk to infants like a lot, like a lot,
- 35:46Speaker 3: a lot like all the time. I've seen some studies,
- 35:49Speaker 3: or I've seen some maybe opinions, I should say, I've
- 35:51Speaker 3: seen some opinions that say, like, oh, you shouldn't really
- 35:53Speaker 3: talk to babies like their babies, Like you shouldn't do
- 35:55Speaker 3: baby talk, you should just kind of talk. I've seen
- 35:58Speaker 3: both of those, like kind of like, you know, babbling
- 36:00Speaker 3: is fine to get them to kind of copy your sounds,
- 36:02Speaker 3: but like you should really talk to them, like you know,
- 36:04Speaker 3: and use like kind of your language and stuff. But
- 36:07Speaker 3: it's also important to imitate them too. So like babbling
- 36:10Speaker 3: and copying sounds are making is fine, like we've mentioned before,
- 36:14Speaker 3: So babble at them, talk to them, engage them constantly,
- 36:17Speaker 3: build off of what they're doing. No one is in control.
- 36:20Speaker 3: Let the relationship happen. And if you're not sure what
- 36:22Speaker 3: to do, do what they do. And when you think
- 36:25Speaker 3: of something to do, then do it. It's fine, you
- 36:27Speaker 3: should be good.
- 36:28Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's really just like just be there with them.
- 36:32Speaker 1: Just be there with them. Sometimes you'll be copying them,
- 36:34Speaker 1: sometimes they'll be copying you. You can just sort of
- 36:36Speaker 1: babble at them. Sometimes you can just talk to them
- 36:39Speaker 1: all the good things. So you know, just just keep
- 36:41Speaker 1: them engaged, keep the vocalizations and the social interaction happening,
- 36:45Speaker 1: and then builds up the importance of the social dynamic
- 36:48Speaker 1: and that social relationship. Right, And that's sort of the
- 36:51Speaker 1: general recommended strategy, right.
- 36:53Speaker 2: Absolutely.
- 36:53Speaker 1: Alternatively, it is recommended that we play ads, and we
- 36:57Speaker 1: do so begrudgingly. Okay. The last part to talk about
- 37:07Speaker 1: here with imitation as imitation as it relates to disability,
- 37:11Speaker 1: which is something that I think we just need to
- 37:14Speaker 1: bring into our conversations more often, just generally, is how
- 37:17Speaker 1: our topics relates to disability. But this is one that
- 37:21Speaker 1: it definitely stood out to me and how there is
- 37:23Speaker 1: a lot of importance to unpack here.
- 37:25Speaker 3: Yes, so it is always worth pointing out that imitation
- 37:29Speaker 3: will be different for children with disabilities or various impairments. Right, So,
- 37:33Speaker 3: children with hearing impairments will not be able to imitate
- 37:36Speaker 3: vocalizations as readily or as similarly. And that's not true
- 37:41Speaker 3: for all children, but like, there are a lot of
- 37:43Speaker 3: folks with hearing impairments might have a harder time with
- 37:45Speaker 3: that depending on the severity of the impairment without additional
- 37:47Speaker 3: support such as hearing aids. Because I mean, you might
- 37:50Speaker 3: have a conversation with somebody who is hearing impaired or
- 37:53Speaker 3: completely deaf, and you'll notice that they have vocal language
- 37:57Speaker 3: because they've learned it, but you might notice that some
- 37:59Speaker 3: of the enunciates are different and stuff like that because
- 38:02Speaker 3: of the hearing impairment. That might make it difficult to
- 38:04Speaker 3: do the vocal imitation.
- 38:05Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Like deafness does not actually mean you cannot
- 38:09Speaker 1: hear anything, right, there is something that is making it
- 38:13Speaker 1: so that it is impaired in some way or another.
- 38:16Speaker 1: But there are children who are born with complete deafness,
- 38:18Speaker 1: like they'll never ever hear sound, and so for them,
- 38:21Speaker 1: like it'll be difficult to match vocal language to anything
- 38:25Speaker 1: in the environment because they wouldn't be able to receive
- 38:27Speaker 1: the feedback to how well it matched. That's not to
- 38:29Speaker 1: say that they won't make vocalizations. They probably will because
- 38:32Speaker 1: it's very easy for us to do as a species,
- 38:35Speaker 1: which just basically breathe through our mouth with a little
- 38:37Speaker 1: bit of vocal cord manipulations, and we do that naturally
- 38:39Speaker 1: as part of crime anyway, right, anyway, that's consideration. Another
- 38:42Speaker 1: one here, and I mentioned this earlier, but that's that
- 38:45Speaker 1: children with visual impairments might struggle with motor imitation without
- 38:49Speaker 1: specific interventions or supports, because again, if they're matching their
- 38:54Speaker 1: behavior to someone else's, that means that they must visually
- 38:57Speaker 1: discriminate someone else's behavior such that they can tell that
- 39:00Speaker 1: what they're doing matches what they're the model is doing
- 39:03Speaker 1: with the person that they're imitating is doing right. And
- 39:06Speaker 1: if they have impairments with their ability to discriminate visual cues,
- 39:10Speaker 1: then it would be extremely difficult for them potentially to
- 39:13Speaker 1: tell that those things match right. Again, not to say
- 39:16Speaker 1: that it's impossible, and you can do it by feel
- 39:18Speaker 1: as well. If a child has very low visual acuity,
- 39:21Speaker 1: but someone can sort of help them sort of feel like,
- 39:24Speaker 1: this is the position my hand is in, the position
- 39:26Speaker 1: my arm is in, and then help the kid imitate
- 39:28Speaker 1: that themselves. Then they'll still have an opportunity to learn it.
- 39:31Speaker 1: And of course, just because they have a visual impairment
- 39:34Speaker 1: doesn't mean that they'll have necessarily other impairments, So they
- 39:37Speaker 1: might still be able to pick up imitation in other ways.
- 39:39Speaker 1: It's just going to be difficult with some motor imitation movements.
- 39:43Speaker 3: Right Absolutely, Children born with limb differences or appendage performations
- 39:48Speaker 3: may be unable to exactly imitate all of the behaviors
- 39:52Speaker 3: as people with that do not have a limb difference.
- 39:54Speaker 3: So if somebody has like, you know, like they may
- 39:57Speaker 3: or they may have like structural like muscle like yelettal
- 40:00Speaker 3: muscular structural difference is right, Like, they may not be
- 40:03Speaker 3: able to lift their shoulder their hand up over their
- 40:05Speaker 3: head because of a shoulder issue or something along those lines.
- 40:08Speaker 3: You know, there's a lot of different things that could
- 40:10Speaker 3: happen that might result in making those imitations more difficult
- 40:17Speaker 3: or physically impossible exactly right.
- 40:19Speaker 1: Yeah, they could just be that they can't exactly replicate that.
- 40:22Speaker 1: That's okay, Like they'll learn it another way, but it
- 40:25Speaker 1: just might look a little different for them right now.
- 40:28Speaker 1: Another consideration here is that, as we've talked about, imitation
- 40:31Speaker 1: is a social behavior and it is arguably one of
- 40:35Speaker 1: the most foundational aspects of social reciprocity and one of
- 40:39Speaker 1: the most characteristic features of an autism diagnosis is a
- 40:43Speaker 1: general lack of social engagement. Is not going to be
- 40:46Speaker 1: the case for every single one of them, As we
- 40:48Speaker 1: have said many times and will continue to say, if
- 40:51Speaker 1: you've met one child with autism, then you've met one
- 40:53Speaker 1: child with autism, right, Like everybody is different, but it
- 40:56Speaker 1: is a common characteristic feature that there is some time
- 41:00Speaker 1: a lack of social engagement, lack of social reciprocity. And
- 41:04Speaker 1: what can happen then is that imitation is one of
- 41:06Speaker 1: the earliest priorities and therapies designed to support individuals with
- 41:10Speaker 1: autism because they might not necessarily be particularly keen to
- 41:14Speaker 1: imitate if a lot of social things are not very
- 41:17Speaker 1: present and sort of in their orbit in their purview.
- 41:20Speaker 1: So the people who are working to support those individuals
- 41:24Speaker 1: might specifically do a lot of imitation as part of
- 41:28Speaker 1: their support structure to facilitate their ability to learn and develop.
- 41:33Speaker 3: Right, let's go ahead and go into a study. Fair warning,
- 41:35Speaker 3: this is a very very very poorly designed study, but
- 41:38Speaker 3: it is a study that was done in this even
- 41:41Speaker 3: with direct teaching.
- 41:42Speaker 2: I'm just kidding. This is a great study.
- 41:43Speaker 3: Even with direct teaching, some children still struggle to correctly imitate,
- 41:47Speaker 3: gross or find motor movements with especially children with autism.
- 41:51Speaker 2: So for students with whom traditional.
- 41:53Speaker 3: Strategies fail to adequately build imitation, some studies of successfully
- 41:57Speaker 3: tap modeling by positioning the child in front of a
- 41:59Speaker 3: mirror with the modeled next to them. That can help
- 42:02Speaker 3: them to see the correspondence between their motor movements and
- 42:05Speaker 3: the models. Or they're like they're kind of like they're
- 42:08Speaker 3: watching themselves model the behavior next.
- 42:10Speaker 2: To the model as well. Yeah, that was from Miller
- 42:12Speaker 2: at All twenty fifteen.
- 42:14Speaker 1: Sean's giving me a hard time because this is the
- 42:15Speaker 1: first study that I published, So I'll do a little
- 42:18Speaker 1: bit of unpacking here. The general idea here was that
- 42:21Speaker 1: there were some students that I worked with who they
- 42:24Speaker 1: just really struggled to develop certain motor movements, particularly one
- 42:28Speaker 1: where it was the movement was not exactly in front
- 42:32Speaker 1: of their face, and so it was difficult for them
- 42:35Speaker 1: to match their movement to the model because they couldn't
- 42:38Speaker 1: see the visual feedback of how well it corresponded to
- 42:41Speaker 1: the model's movement, right Essentially, I found another study that
- 42:45Speaker 1: had already done something with using a mirror similar to this,
- 42:49Speaker 1: but it was pretty straightforward. I was basically just said, like,
- 42:51Speaker 1: let's just put them in front of a mirror so
- 42:52Speaker 1: that we can give them an opportunity to see how
- 42:55Speaker 1: well what they're doing matches what I'm doing. Right, And
- 42:57Speaker 1: it was very successful, was it. We were able to
- 42:59Speaker 1: get all of the skills that we were trying to
- 43:01Speaker 1: teach acquired, and then even started to see some generalization
- 43:05Speaker 1: to new skills as well that were related. And so
- 43:08Speaker 1: I thought it went pretty well. And Shane was given
- 43:11Speaker 1: me hard time and that's fine.
- 43:12Speaker 4: Yah.
- 43:13Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very good study. It's great. It worked.
- 43:15Speaker 2: It worked, and that's really what matters, right.
- 43:18Speaker 3: Yeah, So if we can help provide support to be
- 43:20Speaker 3: able to develop imitation that can further facilitate acquisition skills
- 43:24Speaker 3: or the acquisition of other tasks, such that the individual
- 43:27Speaker 3: with disabilities, the person who is struggling with these skills,
- 43:30Speaker 3: they will have an opportunity for greater independence and self advocacy.
- 43:33Speaker 3: So the thing is is people don't realize how critically
- 43:37Speaker 3: important imitation is to learning new skills. Yeah, if you've
- 43:42Speaker 3: ever learned how to do a skill by watching a
- 43:45Speaker 3: YouTube video. That is an example of you using your
- 43:49Speaker 3: imitation repertoire, to your generalized imitation repertoire to pick up
- 43:53Speaker 3: a skill having never done the skill, and then watching it,
- 43:57Speaker 3: copying it, and contacting natural reinforcement inside of your own
- 44:01Speaker 3: environment like that matters. The amount of skills that we
- 44:05Speaker 3: have probably learned through imitation is kind of absurd when
- 44:08Speaker 3: you really think about it.
- 44:10Speaker 1: It's a whole lot. I mean, you're exactly right, Like
- 44:12Speaker 1: we do this all the time when we watch something
- 44:15Speaker 1: and then to learn how to do it, and then
- 44:17Speaker 1: we just try and copy what they're doing. And it
- 44:19Speaker 1: seems to us pretty straightforward, like yeah, I'm just going
- 44:21Speaker 1: to until I'm just going to do that thing. But
- 44:23Speaker 1: I cannot even tell you how many other species struggle
- 44:26Speaker 1: with observational learning where they pick up little, if anything
- 44:30Speaker 1: from some of the environment. Now, as I said, a
- 44:32Speaker 1: lot of species do use observational learning or do yeah, yeah,
- 44:37Speaker 1: but there are many that use it to a very tiny,
- 44:40Speaker 1: tiny degree oftentimes, if even noticeably at all. Right, And
- 44:45Speaker 1: so the fact that we do it so readily, so easily,
- 44:48Speaker 1: and that we can pick up whole new sets of
- 44:50Speaker 1: skills without ever having done them first, or like learning
- 44:55Speaker 1: just through trial and error. We can actually get pretty
- 44:57Speaker 1: good at something right off the bat, just by watching
- 45:00Speaker 1: someone else who's already good at it do it, assuming
- 45:02Speaker 1: it doesn't you know, require a whole lot of like
- 45:05Speaker 1: specific fine motor muscle development, right, which can be the case,
- 45:09Speaker 1: Like I don't know how good I would actually be,
- 45:12Speaker 1: Like even if I watch someone play a very difficult
- 45:16Speaker 1: guitar lick, like I am not used to coordinating coordinating
- 45:19Speaker 1: my fingers in those ways, right, And so I, even
- 45:23Speaker 1: watching someone who's very very good at guitar, I would
- 45:25Speaker 1: not be able to replicate that because my fingers are
- 45:27Speaker 1: just not that coordinated yet, right. But other thing nimbles,
- 45:29Speaker 1: Like I, yeah, not that nimble. I would have to
- 45:32Speaker 1: really practice to get there. But anyway, long story short,
- 45:34Speaker 1: it is something that we do very readily as a species,
- 45:37Speaker 1: and it's kind of amazing and it's very important and
- 45:39Speaker 1: one of the reasons that we can learn so efficiently
- 45:41Speaker 1: and so effectively is that we can do that thing.
- 45:43Speaker 2: Right. It's pretty incredible. So imitation, don't sleep on it.
- 45:48Speaker 1: Imitation good, Imitation good. Why we do what we do?
- 45:52Speaker 1: Approved yes, I like that.
- 45:55Speaker 3: We should get a stamp, a rubber stamp for that
- 45:56Speaker 3: and go boom approve.
- 45:58Speaker 1: That's right, all right. I think that is mostly what
- 46:02Speaker 1: we have to say about imitation, though it's cool stuff.
- 46:05Speaker 1: If you would like to tell us your thoughts about
- 46:07Speaker 1: imitation or share your stories of your kids doing cute
- 46:10Speaker 1: imitative things, we'd love to hear those. You should reach
- 46:12Speaker 1: out to us. You can reach us on social media,
- 46:14Speaker 1: you can email us directly at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com,
- 46:19Speaker 1: and we would love to hear from you about all
- 46:21Speaker 1: those things. Now I need to read some credits and
- 46:24Speaker 1: then we are going to share some things with you
- 46:26Speaker 1: that we think that you should check out if you're interested,
- 46:29Speaker 1: and we call them our recommendations. But I would like
- 46:32Speaker 1: to first say that again, if you are joining us
- 46:34Speaker 1: for the first time, thank you so much for being here.
- 46:35Speaker 1: We hope that you enjoyed this episode. Consider giving us
- 46:38Speaker 1: a like and a subscribe and a rating and review.
- 46:41Speaker 1: At the very least, you can go click those five stars.
- 46:43Speaker 1: It just helps everybody. It's really great. But if you subscribe,
- 46:46Speaker 1: we'll also make sure that we show up every week
- 46:48Speaker 1: in your podcast feed. Monday, we release many episodes that
- 46:51Speaker 1: are sort of bite size ten to fifteen minute dives
- 46:54Speaker 1: on a single topic. Wednesday's we release our full length
- 46:57Speaker 1: episodes where we really unpack something in high academic format,
- 47:03Speaker 1: and you can make sure that those things always show
- 47:05Speaker 1: up and then listen to every one of them, or
- 47:07Speaker 1: just whichever ones really stand out to you as seeming interesting. Whatever.
- 47:10Speaker 1: We do our best. Yeah, but if you would like
- 47:12Speaker 1: to even take that a step further, you can go
- 47:14Speaker 1: over pick up some merch at our store, and as
- 47:16Speaker 1: I said, you can join us on Patreon. When you're there,
- 47:18Speaker 1: you're going to get access to all kinds of cool
- 47:20Speaker 1: behind the scenes content, add free content, early episodes, all
- 47:23Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And we would so appreciate people
- 47:26Speaker 1: who have already taken that leap. So I'd like to
- 47:28Speaker 1: say a big, giant congratulatory thank you to the people
- 47:32Speaker 1: who help make this podcast be a podcast that is. Mike,
- 47:36Speaker 1: m Megan, Mike T, Justin, Kim, Joshua, Brad, Stephanie, Olivia, Brian, Ashley, Kiara,
- 47:42Speaker 1: and Michelle. Thank you all so much for your continued support.
- 47:44Speaker 2: Yes, we love you so so, so so so much.
- 47:47Speaker 1: Of course, my team, if people helped make this happen
- 47:49Speaker 1: runing in fact checking from shaneon myself. Our audio engineering
- 47:53Speaker 1: person who does all the magic behind the scenes, who
- 47:55Speaker 1: sometimes we make work far too hard, is Justin Justin. Yes.
- 48:01Speaker 1: Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson. Is there anything
- 48:05Speaker 1: else that I forgot? Anything you'd like to add before
- 48:07Speaker 1: we recommend something? Shane, No, I think that covers it
- 48:10Speaker 1: all right, Well, first adds, then recommendations, recommendations. I'm gonna
- 48:30Speaker 1: go first because I think your recommendation is really fun
- 48:34Speaker 1: and mine is really fun but maybe has a smaller audience. Okay, sure, sure, sure, okay.
- 48:40Speaker 1: I am recommending a board game. This game is called
- 48:45Speaker 1: Segrata Artisans. Now, this is a legacy game. A legacy
- 48:49Speaker 1: game is one that is intended to be played once,
- 48:53Speaker 1: and the reason that it goes like this is that
- 48:55Speaker 1: as you go through playing the game, the game will
- 48:58Speaker 1: add new rules. It will have you open secret envelopes
- 49:03Speaker 1: with different components to the game that you will like
- 49:06Speaker 1: sort of earn as it develops over the campaign, and
- 49:09Speaker 1: it will permanently change in alter aspects of the game itself,
- 49:13Speaker 1: so that like you can't really go back. It could
- 49:15Speaker 1: involve things like destroying cards, it could be putting stickers
- 49:20Speaker 1: over the pieces the change what they do, and adding
- 49:23Speaker 1: new cards. There's all kinds of things that change the
- 49:25Speaker 1: rules of the game as you develop, and it usually
- 49:28Speaker 1: is designed to take several weeks to play through. If
- 49:31Speaker 1: you meet like once a week to play do a
- 49:33Speaker 1: board game night or something, it'll take you several weeks
- 49:36Speaker 1: to play through that entire game, so you get a
- 49:38Speaker 1: lot of playtime out of the game. I've been afraid
- 49:40Speaker 1: of these games because I really like replayability, Like I
- 49:44Speaker 1: want to be able to sit down with a game,
- 49:46Speaker 1: play it through, then play through again, and keep enjoying
- 49:49Speaker 1: the playthroughs, and it doesn't like get stale or old,
- 49:52Speaker 1: or I just memorize all the cards or anything. So
- 49:54Speaker 1: it's like not that interesting, right, And so a game
- 49:57Speaker 1: that's specifically designed to be played only once is sort
- 50:00Speaker 1: of like not sure that that's for me. And then
- 50:02Speaker 1: I played this game now. Segrata Artisans is based off
- 50:05Speaker 1: of another board game, a dice game actually called Segrata
- 50:08Speaker 1: that I really really really like, and so I thought
- 50:11Speaker 1: this would be a cool opportunity for me to sort
- 50:13Speaker 1: of get into the world of legacy games. And I
- 50:17Speaker 1: have really enjoyed it. It is really cool, so now
- 50:20Speaker 1: I'm more keen to pick up more legacy games Segrata Artisans.
- 50:24Speaker 1: What I think they do really smart too, is the
- 50:27Speaker 1: game starts very very simple, and it starts to layer
- 50:31Speaker 1: in aspects of complexity. So if someone had never played
- 50:34Speaker 1: Segrata or is not really in the board gaming world,
- 50:37Speaker 1: you could pick this up and I think you'd be
- 50:39Speaker 1: able to follow it quite easily, as it starts with
- 50:41Speaker 1: just like the very simple base set of rules, and
- 50:44Speaker 1: then they start adding in some complexity to the rules
- 50:47Speaker 1: over the course of multiple games. Okay, I think this
- 50:50Speaker 1: works well for sort of newer people, but I really
- 50:53Speaker 1: really enjoy it. Strong recommend it's called Segrata Artisans.
- 50:57Speaker 2: Okay, cool. I like that.
- 50:58Speaker 3: I think there's something really fascinating about the creativity inside
- 51:01Speaker 3: the board game world, and like the amount of light
- 51:04Speaker 3: too rules that you have to create to make it
- 51:06Speaker 3: work and not break a game. I think it is
- 51:08Speaker 3: really impressive. Like I can't think like that, so it's
- 51:11Speaker 3: always very impressive to me.
- 51:13Speaker 1: Oh and I forgot to say, the theme of this
- 51:15Speaker 1: basically is the idea that you're building stained glass windows.
- 51:18Speaker 1: So in the original Sograta. You have these translucent colored
- 51:22Speaker 1: dice that you're arranging in patterns on like a little grid,
- 51:25Speaker 1: and you're trying to score various point conditions for that
- 51:28Speaker 1: and follow specific placement rules. Yeah, in this game, you're
- 51:31Speaker 1: actually using colored pencils to color in a sheet to
- 51:34Speaker 1: make these like little stained glass window things. Okay, and
- 51:37Speaker 1: again cool, you're scoring points for the arrangements that you
- 51:40Speaker 1: make according to some scoring conditions.
- 51:42Speaker 2: So okay, cool, I like that.
- 51:44Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Okay, that's it for Segreta.
- 51:46Speaker 3: So my recommendation is a movie that recently came out
- 51:50Speaker 3: called Beetlejuice.
- 51:51Speaker 2: Beetlejuice.
- 51:52Speaker 1: Woo. I was gonna recommend this if you didn't, so
- 51:55Speaker 1: I'm glad you did.
- 51:56Speaker 2: Yeah, let's ih man, you know.
- 51:59Speaker 3: I So, first of all, I think I'm just somebody
- 52:02Speaker 3: who has a very low bar of entry for like entertainment.
- 52:05Speaker 3: Like I'm just somebody who, like I want to I
- 52:08Speaker 3: want to preface them because I do about music, Yeah, movies.
- 52:12Speaker 2: Music, I'm very particular.
- 52:13Speaker 3: No, I listen to a lot of music, but like
- 52:15Speaker 3: I'm also like, oh that sounds cool, but like yeah,
- 52:17Speaker 3: I'm very picky about my music too. So anyway when
- 52:20Speaker 3: it comes to movies, TV shows and stuff like that,
- 52:22Speaker 3: mostly movies, I I just go to be entertained. I'm
- 52:25Speaker 3: somebody who is just like happy to be there. I
- 52:27Speaker 3: just want to have fun.
- 52:29Speaker 2: Beal Juice. Beetlejuice is absolutely that. It is fun.
- 52:32Speaker 3: I think it's actually pretty good too. Like I'm not
- 52:34Speaker 3: saying like it's a bad movie.
- 52:35Speaker 1: Yeah, I say, I think you're under selling the movie.
- 52:38Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's it's actually very good.
- 52:39Speaker 3: So you've got the original cast, Catherine O'Hara, Michael Keaton,
- 52:44Speaker 3: all three of them are amazing in it.
- 52:47Speaker 2: Like it's so great.
- 52:48Speaker 3: It takes place many years after the original Beetlejuice.
- 52:52Speaker 1: Yeah, basically like from when the first one came out
- 52:54Speaker 1: to modern times.
- 52:55Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah, Winoda Rider has a child with and
- 52:58Speaker 3: like the child is Genner or Tega so good in it,
- 53:02Speaker 3: like definitely captures captures like the gothy angst like anger
- 53:07Speaker 3: that like Lydia Ded's had in the first one. Like
- 53:09Speaker 3: it totally like it layers over but like it's more modern.
- 53:12Speaker 3: It feels good. But man, it is so much fun.
- 53:15Speaker 3: It spends more time in the afterlife. There's a little
- 53:18Speaker 3: bit more in that world. Which is really cool. You've
- 53:20Speaker 3: got Justin Thieau who is so funny in it. He
- 53:24Speaker 3: plays like Lydia's He's ridiculous. He's Lydia Deets's manager, and
- 53:28Speaker 3: he's like a very like New age like kind of
- 53:32Speaker 3: weird hippie culty acting guy.
- 53:34Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 53:35Speaker 3: Monica Blucci in it is really great in it. She's
- 53:37Speaker 3: like the She's she's a character that's like, I don't
- 53:40Speaker 3: want to reveal the story, but like, she's a good
- 53:42Speaker 3: character in it. Willem Dafoe is a guy named Wolf Jackson.
- 53:48Speaker 1: You gotta keep it real.
- 53:50Speaker 2: Oh my god. His character is so funny.
- 53:52Speaker 3: My favorite gag is every time he shows up on screen,
- 53:54Speaker 3: somebody walks off the side of the screen to hand
- 53:56Speaker 3: him a cup of coffee.
- 53:58Speaker 2: Like it happens every time he shows up on screen.
- 54:01Speaker 2: It's great.
- 54:02Speaker 1: Yeah, even if it makes no sense for this. Yeah,
- 54:06Speaker 1: one of them. I think he takes it and just
- 54:08Speaker 1: throws it.
- 54:09Speaker 2: He does, he crushes it in his hand, it throws it. Yeah. Yeah,
- 54:11Speaker 2: it's done really well. It feels good.
- 54:14Speaker 3: It does a lot of really cool callbacks, tie backs.
- 54:17Speaker 3: I think my favorite thing is how they wrote off
- 54:19Speaker 3: the dad though. That is one of my favorite things ever.
- 54:22Speaker 1: That was really good.
- 54:23Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 54:23Speaker 3: Yeah, so I learned that that whole sequence that they
- 54:26Speaker 3: do is I guess Tim Burton's like actual like actual fear,
- 54:32Speaker 3: like he fears. Yeah yeah, that death is how he
- 54:35Speaker 3: would fear dying. So anyway, Yeah, it's great. Danny DeVito's
- 54:39Speaker 3: in it, which was a great surprise. Yeah right, Yeah,
- 54:42Speaker 3: So it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun.
- 54:45Speaker 3: So please go see it, enjoy it, have fun with it.
- 54:48Speaker 3: Take it for what it is, which is a Beetlejuice
- 54:50Speaker 3: movie in all of its absurdity.
- 54:53Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and I think honestly, they did some things
- 54:55Speaker 1: really well. They didn't just try to copy the original movie.
- 54:59Speaker 1: They didn't go off on some weird like oh what
- 55:01Speaker 1: if we put Beetle Juice in this funny scenario?
- 55:05Speaker 2: Right?
- 55:05Speaker 1: I think they actually tried to introduce a new story
- 55:09Speaker 1: using those characters in a way that felt like there
- 55:13Speaker 1: was some homages to the first movie, but also like
- 55:16Speaker 1: this is a totally unique, standalone story. Yes, and it's
- 55:20Speaker 1: very funny, it's very quirky, it's very weird. It. I
- 55:23Speaker 1: think it was well written and well thought out, and
- 55:26Speaker 1: it has it has some really really good jokes in
- 55:30Speaker 1: it that it just really really got me. And yeah,
- 55:34Speaker 1: I think I say when you say, like I love movies,
- 55:37Speaker 1: but I have a low bar, like I actually think
- 55:40Speaker 1: it's good. Like it's legitimately you do not have to
- 55:43Speaker 1: have a low bar to enjoy.
- 55:46Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to enjoy that world.
- 55:48Speaker 1: Yeah maybe for like Kong ex Godzilla or Godzilla X Kong,
- 55:52Speaker 1: you need a low bar, but you need a little
- 55:54Speaker 1: bar for that. Yeah.
- 55:55Speaker 2: But yeah, I think that the house, the house veil.
- 56:00Speaker 1: When is that amazing?
- 56:02Speaker 2: The death shroud on the house. I thank you that.
- 56:05Speaker 2: I when I saw that, I went, oh my god,
- 56:07Speaker 2: that's amazing.
- 56:10Speaker 1: The house is in morning.
- 56:11Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so good.
- 56:13Speaker 1: So yeah, I second that recommendation. Very good. Okay, we
- 56:17Speaker 1: spent about a quarter of this episode of recommendations, which honestly, like,
- 56:20Speaker 1: that's why you're here, Like, let's be.
- 56:22Speaker 2: Why you're here.
- 56:22Speaker 1: We know, we know so so Grado Artisans, board Game
- 56:27Speaker 1: and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice the new movie. But as I said,
- 56:30Speaker 1: if you'd like to talk to us about imitation, or
- 56:32Speaker 1: you can talk to us about those two things, you
- 56:33Speaker 1: should reach out to us. But anyway, thank you so
- 56:35Speaker 1: much for listening chain. Is there anything you'd like to
- 56:37Speaker 1: add or anything I forgot before we wrap up today?
- 56:39Speaker 3: No, I think I think we covered imitation pretty well well.
- 56:43Speaker 1: Thank you for recording with me today. I agree with you,
- 56:45Speaker 1: by the way, and then thank you all for listening.
- 56:47Speaker 3: This is Abraham, This is Abraham.
- 56:51Speaker 2: We're out.
- 56:54Speaker 1: You've been listening to Why we do what we do.
- 56:56Speaker 1: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
- 56:59Speaker 1: going to w w D w w D podcast dot com.
- 57:03Speaker 3: Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.