In animals, most induced behaviours seem to require a language, while imitated
behaviours seem not to need one. This is because the inducer needs to send information to the
individual(s) he is trying to induce; whereas perception gives the information required for
imitation.
In natural systems, complex social behaviour may emerge from only imitation and
induction of behaviour. For example, during a traffic jam, if one driver honks his horn, probably
his action will be imitated, and the new honks will be also imitated (not ad infinitum), provoking
a lot of noise, causing not much pleasure in the drivers. The clapping in audiences seems to
work in a similar way. If one person begins to clap, then others tend to follow, and a general
acclamation emerges in a chain reaction style. On the other hand, if no one claps, it is harder
that someone will start clapping, or clap for a long time, because he is inhibited by the
behaviour of the rest of the audience. So, mass approval or disapproval of events emerges in
a complex way, depending on the imitation or non imitation of behaviours. Laughing also might
be an induced behaviour. A joke is always funnier if there are a lot of people laughing around
you. Or what for the recorded laughs in comic shows?
Induction and imitation of behaviour give individuals the possibility to socialize though
some form of communication. Without communication, there is no society, only selfish
individuals trying to survive by themselves, ignoring everyone else. And without society, no
culture can evolve.
In our model, inspired in personal empirical observations, when another individual is
perceived, his behaviour is taken into account in the action selection process, making equivalent
the perceived behaviour to the external stimulus that motivated it. For example, if an individual
perceives another approaching food or eating, it will be equivalent as if he had perceived food
(which motivates the behaviours “approach food” and “eat”). If an individual perceives another
one fleeing, it will be equivalent to the perception of an aversive stimuli (e.g. a predator). In
Figure 15 we can see graphically this idea. We can formalize this as follows:
PJ⅝→ = *⅞ (15)
where PR is the perception of stimulus i by the receiver, which is increased by behaviour j
related to stimulus i perceived in “sender” k, and -k (lamed) is the imitation factor related to
individual k.
For induction the idea is very similar. When an individual perceives another, he will try
to induce his behaviour to the other, as if the other would be imitating him. This is, the inducer
will send to the induced a signal representing the stimulus that motivated the inducer’s
behaviours. We can formalize this as follows:
(16+= SS6j t∖.<*' (16)
where PR is the perception of stimulus i by the induced receiver, which is increased by the
behaviour j of inductor k related to stimulus i, -k (lamed) is the imitation factor related to the
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