This year’s professor for the Edward F. Arnold visiting professorship is Dr. Emily Bushnell, a visiting professor in psychology who has spent most of her career at Tufts University in Massachusetts, well-known for her research in the realms of cognitive development, perception and motor-learning. The professorship was established in 1968 as Arnold’s request to bring a distinguished professor to Whitman College each year.

Bushnell’s lecture, entitled “Is Simon Says So Simple? Imitation as a Foundation for Human Culture and Technology,” presented her most recent research which focuses on imitation.

“[Imitation] is usually, for most of us, a trivial, easy, almost automatic process. But upon closer examination, imitation is actually a rather complex, psychological process, and also a very important one,” said Bushnell.
Bushnell talked about how the brain functions in imitation: using “mirror neurons” in the brain, which have also been association with cognitive functions such as empathy: and how this research was discovered by a group of Italian scientists who observed the behavior of apes.

“[The lecture] reminded me of some things I’d read a little about but forgotten. Like mirror neurons, which are cool. Interesting implications,” said senior psychology major Chris Lukes.

Imitation between a parent and his or her child was another topic discussed in the presentation.

“The adult interacting with the baby is actually giving the infant, or the infant’s brain, just the kind of experience it needs of doing a certain behavior the same time you’re seeing it, in order to configure, or construct, these mirror neurons, which later on facilitate imitation,” Bushnell said.

Bushnell also talked about imitation as a form of learning.

“Emily Bushnell made me think about how many of my random daily activities, such as cracking my knuckles, running my hands through my hair and others, are actually behaviors that I learned from others rather than actions I picked up on my own. It was interesting to learn that we [people] will often imitate others because we are trying to understand them, and I can think of instances where I would unconsciously start to laugh like someone else I was with for no apparent reason,” said first-year Emily Brucia, who is interested in forensic psychology and eventually becoming a criminal lawyer.