The social nature of overimitation: Insights from Autism and Williams syndrome

Vivanti, Giacomo; Hocking, Darren R.; Fanning, Peter; Dissanayake, Cheryl

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2017.01.008

Cited by 30 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…) and are extremely attracted to human faces (Pober ; Vivanti et al . ). As such, their performance on tasks that require the processing of human facial expressions or the categorisation of affective facial stimuli is relatively preserved (Santos et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…In addition, the absence of an ASD group to serve as an additional control group for the genetic syndromes is a methodological caveat of the current study that merits future research. The importance of contrasting the syndromes with an ASD group is strengthened given the well-characterised neurodevelopmental deficits in ASD (despite the lack of clear genetic loci) and initial findings showing fundamental discrepancies in some socio-cognitive abilities between ASD, 22q11.2DS and WS (McCabe et al 2013;Vivanti et al 2017a;Vivanti et al 2017b).…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In terms of their social phenotype, individuals with WS are hyper-social, demonstrate excessive desire to approach people, exhibit indiscriminate trust towards others (Martens et al 2008) and are extremely attracted to human faces (Pober 2010;Vivanti et al 2017b). As such, their performance on tasks that require the processing of human facial expressions or the categorisation of affective facial stimuli is relatively preserved Dodd et al 2010), and it appears to be commensurate with mental age, rather than chronological age.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comparing the broad socio‐cognitive profile of youth with Williams syndrome and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

Weisman

Feldman

Burg-Malki

et al. 2017

J intellect Disabil Res

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Background Numerous studies have assessed the socio-cognitive profile in Williams syndrome (WS) and, independently, in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS). Yet, a cross-syndrome comparison of these abilities between individuals with these two syndromes with known social deficits has not been conducted. Methods Eighty-two children participated in four study groups: WS (n=18), 22q112.DS (n=24), age-matched individuals with idiopathic developmental disability (IDD; n=20), and typically developing (TD) controls (n=20). Participants completed four socio-cognitive tests; facial emotion recognition, mental state attribution, differentiating real from apparent emotions, and trait inference based on motives and actions-outcomes. Results The current findings demonstrate that children with WS were better in labeling happy faces compared to children with 22q11.2DS, partially reflecting their exaggerated social drive. In the false belief task, however, the WS and IDD groups performed poorly compared to the 22q11.2DS group, possibly due to their difficulty to interpret subtle social cues. When asked to identify the gap between real-negative vs. apparent-positive emotions, the 22q11.2DS group performed similarly to TD children but better than the WS group, possibly due to their anxious personality and their innate bias towards negatively-valence cues. Finally, individuals with WS were more willing to become friends with a story-character even when the character’s motives were negative, reflecting their difficulty to avoid potentially harmful real-life situations. Conclusions Overall, our multi-facet socio-cognitive battery uncovered strengths and weaknesses in social cognition that are syndrome-specific, shared among the genetic syndromes, or common to the three clinical groups compared to healthy controls. Our findings underscore the need to devise age- and condition-specific assessment tools and intervention programs toward improving these children’s socio-cognitive deficits.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Comparing the broad socio‐cognitive profile of youth with Williams syndrome and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

Weisman

Feldman

Burg-Malki

et al. 2017

J intellect Disabil Res

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“…Instrumental irrelevant‐action imitation may facilitate short‐term object exploration (Wood, Kendal, & Flynn, ), or it may directly stimulate long‐term encoding of how something works (Lyons et al, ). Social irrelevant‐action imitation may facilitate short‐term affiliation within an interaction (Over & Carpenter, ; Vivanti, Hocking, Fanning, & Dissanayake, ), or it may stimulate long‐term encoding of shared social conventions (Clegg & Legare, ; Watson‐Jones et al, ). As others have argued (e.g., Chudek et al, ; Hoehl et al, ), these different functions, at different timescales, are not mutually exclusive, but may be functional subtypes or context‐specific instantiations of irrelevant‐action imitation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Irrelevant‐action imitation is short‐term and contextual: Evidence from two under‐studied populations

Kline

Gervais

Moya

et al. 2019

Developmental Science

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Across the lifespan and across populations, humans ‘overimitate’ causally unnecessary behaviors. Such irrelevant‐action imitation facilitates faithful cultural transmission, but its immediate benefits to the imitator are controversial. Over short time scales, irrelevant‐action imitation may bootstrap artifact exploration or interpersonal affiliation, and over longer time scales it may facilitate acquisition of either causal models or social conventions. To investigate these putative functions, we recruited community samples from two under‐studied populations: Yasawa, Fiji, and Huatasani, Peru. We use a two‐action puzzle box: first after a video demonstration, and again one month later. Treating age as a continuous variable, we reveal divergent developmental trajectories across sites. Yasawans (44 adults, M = 39.9 years, 23 women; 42 children, M = 9.8 years, 26 girls) resemble documented patterns, with irrelevant‐action imitation increasing across childhood and plateauing in adulthood. In contrast, Huatasaneños (48 adults, M = 37.6 years, 33 women; 47 children, M = 9.3 years, 13 girls) evince a parabolic trajectory: adults at the site show the lowest irrelevant‐action imitation of any demographic set in our sample. In addition, all age sets in both populations reduce their irrelevant actions at Time 2, but do not reduce their relevant‐action imitation or goal attainment. Taken together, and considering the local cultural contexts, our results suggest that irrelevant‐action imitation serves a short‐term function and is sensitive to the social context of the demonstration.

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“…The affiliative role of imitation is also evident in “synchronic imitation,” in which toddlers copy behavior in concert with their play partner as a way to participate in the interaction (Asendorpf, Warkentin, & Baudonnière, ; Eckerman, Davis, & Didow, ), or as a response toward parental socialization (Forman & Kochanska, ). Moreover, the tendency to “overimitate” has been associated with individual differences in children's social affiliation motives: Typically developing children and children with William syndrome have been shown to imitate more faithfully than children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Marsh, Pearson, Ropar, & Hamilton, ; Nielsen, Slaughter, & Dissanayake, ; Vivanti, Hocking, Fanning, & Dissanayake, ), and 15‐month‐old infants who were rated high on extraversion imitated more faithfully than those who were rated low (Hilbrink, Sakkalou, Ellis‐Davies, Fowler, & Gattis, ). In this study, we explore whether individual rates of faithful imitation are related to both their affiliative traits (measured by parental report) and affiliative behaviors (measured by experimental tasks).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ontogeny of cumulative culture: Individual toddlers vary in faithful imitation and goal emulation

Yu¹,

Kushnir

2019

Developmental Science

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The success of human culture depends on early emerging mechanisms of social learning, which include the ability to acquire opaque cultural knowledge through faithful imitation, as well as the ability to advance culture through flexible discovery of new means to goal attainment. This study explores whether this mixture of faithful imitation and goal emulation is based in part on individual differences which emerge early in ontogeny. Experimental measurements and parental reports were collected for a group of 2‐year‐old children (N = 48, age = 23–32 months) on their imitative behavior as well as other aspects of cognitive and social development. Results revealed individual differences in children's imitative behavior across trials and tasks which were best characterized by a model that included two behavioral routines; one corresponding to faithful imitation, and one to goal emulation. Moreover, individual differences in faithful imitation and goal emulation were correlated with individual differences in theory of mind, prosocial behavior, and temperament. These findings were discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the mechanisms of social learning, ontogeny of cumulative culture, and the benefit of analyzing individual differences for developmental experiments.

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The social nature of overimitation: Insights from Autism and Williams syndrome

Cited by 30 publications

References 85 publications

Comparing the broad socio‐cognitive profile of youth with Williams syndrome and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

Comparing the broad socio‐cognitive profile of youth with Williams syndrome and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

Irrelevant‐action imitation is short‐term and contextual: Evidence from two under‐studied populations

The ontogeny of cumulative culture: Individual toddlers vary in faithful imitation and goal emulation

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