Automatic imitation effects are influenced by experience of synchronous action in children

Abstract

By their fourth year of life, children are expert imitators, but it is unclear how this ability develops. One approach suggests that certain types of experience might forge associations between the sensory and motor representations of an action that may facilitate imitation at a later time. Sensorimotor experience of this sort may occur when an infant's action is imitated by a caregiver or when socially synchronous action occurs. This learning approach, therefore, predicts that the strength of sensory-motor associations should depend on the frequency and quality of previous experience. Here, we tested this prediction by examining automatic imitation, that is, the tendency of an action stimulus to facilitate the performance of that action and interfere with the performance of an incompatible action. We required children (aged between 3 years 8 months and 7 years 11 months) to respond to actions performed by an experimenter (e.g., two hands clapping) with both compatible actions (i.e., two hands clapping) and incompatible actions (i.e., two hands waving) at different stages in the experimental procedure. As predicted by a learning account, actions thought to be performed in synchrony (i.e., clapping/waving) produced stronger automatic imitation effects when compared with actions where previous sensorimotor experience is likely to be more limited (e.g., pointing/hand closing). Furthermore, these automatic imitation effects were not found to vary with age, with both compatible and incompatible responses quickening with age. These findings suggest a role for sensorimotor experience in the development of imitative ability.

The Social Function of Imitation in Development

“…Recently, important steps have been taken to create tasks that can be used across multiple ages. For example, Van Schaik and Hunnius (2018) have developed a method for measuring nonconscious mimicry in children and Essa, Sebanz and Diesendruck (2019), as well as O'Sullivan, Bijvoet-van den Berg and Caldwell (2018), have measured automatic imitation in children. In a similar vein, McGuigan (2011) and Horowitz (2003) have measured imitative fidelity in explicit tasks with adults.…”

The Pacified Face: Early Embodiment Processes and the Use of Dummies

“…Altogether, sensorimotor simulation is a complex and poorly understood phenomenon that needs further exploration given its importance in social learning (e.g. Paulus et al, 2011;de Klerk et al, 2014;Rayson et al, 2017;O'Sullivan et al, 2018;de Klerk et al, 2019), interpersonal bonding (e.g. , body representations , social cognition (Meltzoff, 1990(Meltzoff, , 2007, and language processing (e.g.…”

Motor imagery during action observation enhances automatic imitation in children with and without developmental coordination disorder

“…Automatic imitation studies allow a more direct investigation of the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying imitation (i.e., the AON), negating the aforementioned confounds regarding motivation and cognitive strategy. While automatic imitation has been studied extensively in adults (see Cracco et al, 2018), to the best of our knowledge O'Sullivan et al (2018) were recently the first to study automatic imitation effects in children (aged 3-7 years), who were presumably free of neurodevelopmental disorders. Those authors found a significant automatic imitation effect in the movement initiation times for children within this age range, and also that these initiation times reduced with increased age.…”