Imitation, memory, and the representation of persons

Abstract

Imitation was tested both immediately and after a 24-hr retention interval in 6-week-old infants. The results showed immediate imitation, which replicates past research, and also imitation from memory, which is new. The latter finding implicates recall memory and establishes that 6-weekolds can generate actions on the basis of stored representations. The motor organization involved in imitation was investigated through a microanalysis of the matching response. Results revealed that infants gradually modified their behavior towards more accurate matches over successive trials. It is proposed that early imitation serves a social identity function. Infants are motivated to imitate after a 24-hr delay as a means of clarifying whether the person they see before them is the same one they previously encountered. They use the reenactment of a person's behavior to probe whether this is the same person. In the domain of inanimate objects, infants use physical manipulations (e.g., shaking) to perform this function. Imitation is to understanding people as physical manipulation is to understanding things. Motor imitation, the behavioral reenactment of things people do, is a primitive means of understanding and communicating with people. Keywordsimitation; memory; mental representation; faces; cross-modal; motor coordination; self; identity; communication; theory of mind; development Children learn by watching adults. Young children often do as parents do instead of as parents say, suggesting that visual models exert a powerful influence on children's actions. In infancy, before language, imitation plays an especially prominent role: It is an avenue for teaching motor skills and also embodies a mutuality and reciprocity that is the essence of communication at the nonverbal level. As apparently simple and commonplace as imitation is, it presents some of the deepest puzzles for theories of infancy. In order to imitate, the child must see the adult's actions, use this visual perception as a basis for an action plan, and execute the motor output. Thus, imitation taps perception, cross-modal coordination, and motor control. If imitation takes place after a significant delay, memory is also involved. The type of memory indexed by imitation is not merely recognition memory, because the infant is doing more than seeing a pattern as familiar or novel. The infant must generate an action on the basis of a memory, thus illustrating a primitive form of nonverbal recall memory (Mandler, 1990;Meltzoff, 1985Meltzoff, , 1988aMeltzoff, , 1990b.Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Andrew N. Meltzoff, Department of Psychology (WJ-10), University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptThe rich psychological web in which imitation is situated-learning, communication, perception-action links, memory, and representation-has made it an enduring topic in developmental psychology (Baldwin, 1906;Piaget, 1962) and an issue in philosophy of...

Beyond re-membering: Phantom sensations of congenitally absent limbs

“…This activation may give rise to phantom sensations in at least a minority of individuals with limb aplasia. A very early use of action-observation as a basis for action planning is suggested by developmental studies that have shown that infants as young as 6 weeks old are capable of imitating a variety of distinct facial movements (40). On the other hand, gesture usage in congenitally blind people reportedly is comparable to that of sighted people, indicating a genetic component for the execution of communication-related hand and arm movements (41).…”

The mirror neuron system as revealed through neonatal imitation: presence from birth, predictive power and evidence of plasticity

“…In addition, infants produce gestures without prompt after a delay, suggesting they are initiating social interaction rather than simply copying actions [96]. In humans, so-called deferred imitation is present (after a 24 h delay) from at least six weeks of life [31,97], and in some macaque infants, it is present (after a 60 s delay) in the first week of life [53], which indicates that these gestures are communicative and under voluntary control rather than reflexive fixed action patterns.…”

“…According to this view, matching should occur for only a few evolutionarily privileged gestures, that is, gestures that are, putatively, fixed and stereotypic, and produce a matching response that is time-locked to the modelled 'trigger' action [95]. This prediction, however, has been tested and has not been supported: infants produce a range of gestures which are not stereotyped, actions which have never been seen before are matched, corrections are made to initial attempts, and responses are not time-locked to modelled actions [31,32,40]. In addition, infants produce gestures without prompt after a delay, suggesting they are initiating social interaction rather than simply copying actions [96].…”

“…For example, the frequency of infants' TP when TP is modelled should be higher than the frequency of infants' TP when MO is modelled, and vice versa [28]. Because some studies have suggested that infants may associate specific individuals with specific facial gestures [31], ideally, each action should be modelled by a different individual, and each action's test session should be separated by a break period in order to avoid carry-over effects across sessions.…”

“…20-60 s [45]), and they may gradually refine and correct their responses (e.g. during a 2.5 min response period [31]), so sufficient time must be provided for infants to initiate, refine and complete their response. In addition, it is important that the length of this response period be predetermined and not based on infants' behaviours [35], as this may introduce a bias for gestures produced spontaneously [48].…”