10C (Meltzoff & Moore: imitation in infancy, 1977)

Background- early approaches to imitation

Piaget

capacity for imitation develops gradually

• 0-6 months- little capacity for imitation

• 8-10 months- progress in ability for imitation

• 9-10 months - interpretation of behaviours as imitative are illusionary (by-product of infant responding to environment rather than true imitation)

• 18-24 months- delayed imitation emerges 

how did Piaget come to these conclusions

Observations from his daughter Jacqueline

• 5 months- tongue protrusion- continued while father (Piaget) did the same- matched behaviour shown by the dad

• However- association was only temporary

• Later suggestions by Piaget did not lead to tongue protrusion (both hours and days later- no delayed imitation)

• 6 months- Piaget waved goodbye, put out tongue, opened mouth and put thumb in it

• No reaction from Jacqueline 

• First movement did not correspond to known schema (act did not correspond to an existing schema)

• Other reasons → some movements involved parts of her face she could not see (inter-modal matching)

what is inter-modal matching?

inter-modal / cross-modal matching

• ability to observe something with one modality (touch) and replicate in another modality (vision)

conclusion- timeline of imitation

0-8 months

• Little imitation in the first 6-8 months

• Infants can imitate actions already in existing schemata as lack of capacity for inter-modal matching

8 months

establishing of connections between what the child sees on the model and cannot see on herself (develop inter-modal capacity)

• Child began making slight noise with saliva from friction on lips

• Piaget imitated

• Child watched attentively

• Father stopped and child imitated

continued

18-24 months

• 1 year, 4 months- Jacquline imitates friend a day later

>18 months

• capacity for representation/inter-modal matching

• deferred imitation is now possible

what did Meltzoff and Moore think of Piagets work

disagreed!

Infants imitative competence= underestimated

• Infants from 5 months can imitate facial and manual gestures (things to do with your hands)

what were the aims

experimentally investigate imitation

emphasised:

• true imitation vs global arousal response (arousal from environment making infant react)

• controlling child-parent interaction

• experimenter bias (Piaget= bias)

controlling true imitation vs global arousal response

• each infants response to a gesture is compared to their response to another similar gesture

• same adult, same distance, same rate of movement (e.g. tongue protrusion, mouth opening)

controlling for parental influence

parents told about aim at the end of the study

controlling for experimenter bias

Infants responses videotaped and coded then scored by blind observers

Experiment 1

participants:

• 6 infants (3M, 3F)

• 12-17 days

1. experimenter presents infant with a passive face

   • unreactive, lip closed, neural facial expression

   • 9 seconds

2. infant shown 4 gestures in a random order

   • lip protrusion, tongue protrusion, mouth opening, sequential finger movement

   • 15 seconds each

3. 20 second response period- experimenter stops and resumes passive face

findings

undergraduate volunteers record response periods

• 2 groups (1 facial responses, 1 manual)

• ranked frequency of gestures shown by infant

gesture shown to infant (e.g., lip protrusion) → imitated most

BUT

imitation of other gestures remained

• did the infant imitate the experimenter or the experimenter imitate the infant (subconsciously)

so what did they do about this

follow up study

participants:

• 12 infants (6M, 6F)

• 16-21 days

1. infant sucked on dummy and experimenter showed passive face

2. dummy removed- 150 sec baseline period

3. dummy inserted, experimenter showed gesture

   • 15 secs

   • mouth opening or tongue protrusion

4. dummy removed, 150 sec response period

   • experimenter resumed passive face

5. gesture 2 etc

(coded with blind undergraduate volunteers who ranked frequency of gestures shown by infant)

findings

infants imitated both tongue protrusion and mouth opening

conclusions

Early accounts of imitation- underestimate age

Meltzoff and Moore (1977)

• systematic, controlled examination of neonatal imitation

• infants imitate gestures from 12 days of age

• even in lack of outside influences (parents influence, environmental arousal) infants imitate 

  • contrary to the behaviourist view

Debate and controversy

why does this happen?- ideas proposed by M&M (1)

1. Innate releasing mechanism (IRM)

• gestures are fixed action patterns that are released by a sign stimulus (corresponding adult gesture)

• automatic reflex-like response

• innate automatic reflex in response to an adult model

• first described by Lorenz & Tinbergen

IRM → 3 main propositions

1. matching occurs for a few evolutionarily privileged structures (some gestures evolutionarily fixed- including tongue protrusion and mouth opening)

2. response is fixed and automatic

3. matching response is time-locked to triggering display and for a set amount of time

is this a reliable mechanism

nope → disproven

• range of gestures imitated

• not time-locked, fixed or stereotypic

• not just the 4 from M&M, showed this that infants showed tongue protrusion on the side- does not add to capacity for survival

another explanation (2)

1. Active Intermodal Mapping (AIM) 

• Imitation or capacity for children to imitate is international, goal-directed intermodal matching (matches the target)

• Imitation is matching-to-target process

• Infants self-produced movements provide proprioceptive feedback that can be compared with the visual target

Proprioceptive- sense that lets us perceive the location, movement and action of parts of the body

continued

• Infant can compare sensory information from its own unseen behaviour with supramodal representation (model)

• Infant constructs a match, understand what is required for them to accomplish this act= imitation

→ constructs a match with supra-model representation = imitation

capacity for imitation dependent on the proprioceptive feedback from infants self-produced movements in response to a supramodel

numero tres

1. Early Learning from Social Interaction (EL)

   Social identification

   • Mimicry- e.g. imitation of facial gestures has been shown to increase liking and prosocial tendencies in the imitated person

Impact and legacy- scientific contributions

insight into development of imitation

• developmental changes in imitation (newborn focussed on whether they can represent the act)

• 6 weeks → focus on the identity of the target (are you the person who does X, not Y?

• 14 months → match testing process

• 18 months → can imitate an inferred act

follow-up study

adults try and fail to perform an act on an object

• e.g., box and stick, square and post

infants imitate what the adult was attempting to do

→ imitation has developed: they see in terms of goals and intentions of target (beginnings of ToM)

at what point do infants imitate the inferred act?

Gergely et al (2002)

14 months old

• infants observe an adult switching on a light box with their head

  • the adults hands are either occupied of free

• in the hands occupied condition- the infant switched on the light with their hands

• in the hands free condition, the infant switched on the light box with their head

they reasoned that the adults goal must have been to use their head as hands were free- rational imitation

another follow-up study

Buttleman et al (2007)

encultrated chimps (raised by humans in the first 12 months of life)

• replicated Gergely

same findings- the chimps engaged in rational imitation

further scientific contributions

implications in

• cognitive science

• education and parenting- role model

• brain science- common coding of action and mirror neurons

mirror neurons

• pre-motor neurons that fires both when an animal acts and when an animal observes an action being performed

• found in monkeys and humans

• mirror neurons might help our understanding of ToM, empathy, and may forms of social behaviour

debate and controversy

mixed findings

Piaget (and late researchers)

• No convincing evidence for imitation until approx. 8 months

Meltzoff and Moore (1977)

• Infants born with innate ability for imitation

• Much earlier ability for imitation on then what Piaget suggested

M&M follow-up study

participants: 6 week old infants

procedure:

1. adult produces gesture (tongue protrusion, tongue protrusion to side, mouth opening)

2. 24hr same adult- passive face

findings- infant produced gesture

→ delayed imitation!!

replicability

mixed findings continue

• 2016 study on 100 infants suggests imitation is a by-product of arousal