Abstract
Previous studies of effects of imitation on individuals in a population, in which the tendencies ϕ towards one or another of two mutually exclusive behaviors are distributed, are amplified by considering the distribution, not of ϕ directly, but of the excitations ɛ01 and ɛ02 of the two centers which mediate each of the two behaviors. It is shown how the distribution of ϕ is derived from those of ɛ01 and ɛ02. It is found that when both tendencies ɛ01 and ɛ02 are weak, the choice of one of the two behaviors not only is originally determined by pure chance, but that it is impossible to effect a change of the behaviour of a large population from one adopted behavior to a possible opposite one, by inhibiting the tendency towards the first behavior. Such a change by inhibition is possible only when the tendencies toward both mutually exclusive behaviors are sufficiently strong. A possible application to the persistency of irrelevant established behavior patterns, such as handshakes, is suggested.
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Rashevsky, N. On imitative behavior. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 27, 175 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02498773
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02498773