The Intelligent Imitator

This monograph presents a novel conceptual framework for the study of human social behavior with potentially far-reaching implications. Owing to the role it accords to stored memory representations of observed occurrences (examples) of actions, the proposed framework is referred to as the Exemplar Choice Theory, or ECT. The theory links perception and action and combines an expectancy-value perspective on choice behavior, with features of recent exemplar-based approaches to the study of human information processing. It addresses the influence of social models, as well as the impact of past action consequences and differs from extant theories of instrumental learning. The volume focuses on two extreme classes of conditions defined in terms of the actor's limited access to information and discusses available evidence from many areas of psychology. Its structure is as follows: the introductory chapter locates the proposed theory within a historical context; this is followed by an overview of the main structure of the conceptual framework; subsequently, general propositions are presented and discussed in detail; later, empirical implications are derived for certain extreme classes of choice conditions and considered in the light of empirical evidence. It is hoped the publication will inspire students and researchers of psychology, biology, zoology and of many social sciences, including sociology, anthropology, decision research, marketing, economics, cognitive science and mass media studies to undertake further research and to reconsider existing data and frameworks.

A page-turning World War Two spy thriller, based on true events. 'The Imitator gripped me to the end: I devoured it ... What a rare treat to find a novel that offers both white-knuckled suspense and evocative, beautiful prose. I loved it.' - Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites and The Good People 'We trade in secrets here, Evelyn. There's no shame in having a few of your own. Our only concern is for who might discover them.' Out of place at boarding school, scholarship girl Evelyn Varley realises that the only way for her to fit in is to be like everyone else. She hides her true self and what she really thinks behind the manners and attitudes of those around her. By the time she graduates from Oxford University in 1939, ambitious and brilliant Evelyn has perfected her performance. War is looming. Evelyn soon finds herself recruited to MI5, and the elite counterintelligence department of Bennett White, the enigmatic spy-runner. Recognising Evelyn's mercurial potential, White schools her in observation and subterfuge and assigns her the dangerous task of infiltrating an underground group of Nazi sympathisers working to form an alliance with Germany. But befriending people to betray them isn't easy, no matter how dark their intent. Evelyn is drawn deeper into a duplicity of her own making, where truth and lies intertwine, and her increasing distrust of everyone, including herself, begins to test her better judgement. When a close friend becomes dangerously ensnared in her mission, Evelyn's loyalty is pushed to breaking point, forcing her to make an impossible decision. A powerfully insightful and luminous portrait of courage and loyalty, and the sacrifices made in their name.

First published in 1999. This volume is the third of a series devoted to the first years of the child’s development, the two others being concerned with the beginnings of intelligence and the child’s construction of reality (La naissance de intelligence chez Venfant and La construction du réel chez Venfant). Although this book contains frequent references to the two other volumes, which deal with the same three children and study the relationships between their mental activities, it nevertheless constitutes in itself an independent and complete study

This book examines science fiction's relationship to religion and the sacred through the lens of significant books, films and television shows. It provides a clear account of the larger cultural and philosophical significance of science fiction, and explores its potential sacrality in today's secular world by analyzing material such as Ray Bradbury's classic novel The Martian Chronicles, films The Abyss and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and also the Star Trek universe. Richard Grigg argues that science fiction is born of nostalgia for a truly 'Other' reality that is no longer available to us, and that the most accurate way to see the relationship between science fiction and traditional approaches to the sacred is as an imitation of true sacrality; this, he suggests, is the best option in a secular age. He demonstrates this by setting forth five definitions of the sacred and then, in consecutive chapters, investigating particular works of science fiction and showing just how they incarnate those definitions. Science Fiction and the Imitation of the Sacred also considers the qualifiers that suggest that science fiction can only imitate the sacred, not genuinely replicate it, and assesses the implications of this investigation for our understanding of secularity and science fiction.

As interest in computer, cognitive, and social sciences grow, the need for alternative approaches to models in related-disciplines thrives. An Imitation-Based Approach to Modeling Homogeneous Agents Societies offers a framework for modeling societies of autonomous agents that is heavily based on fuzzy algebraic tools. This publication overviews platforms developed with the purpose of simulating hypotheses or harvesting data from human subjects in efforts for calibration of the model of early learning in humans. An Imitation-Based Approach to Modeling Homogeneous Agents Societies reaches out to the cognitive sciences, psychology, and anthropology providing a different perspective on a few "classical" problems within these fields.

Useful for undergraduate study, this book provides an account of the Turing Test, its history, context and implications, illustrated with practical tests.

An interdisciplinary overview of current research on imitation in animals and artifacts.