Imitation with Intention and Memory: an Experiment

The experiment described in this paper analyzes imitation in an individ-ual learning context. It supplements the results obtained for imitation in evolutionary processes. The paper makes three main contributions. First, it provides a clear distinc-tion between intentional imitation and genuine learning. Second, it shows that players consider more than just last period’s performance when choosing imitation examples. This contrasts with the assumption in most theoretical and experimental research. Third, since the design makes imitation explicit, it allows a detailed analysis of imitation behavior, showing that players do not imitate rationally