Can newborn infants imitate?

Abstract

For several decades, scientists have held that newborn human infants can imitate adult behaviors like mouth opening, tongue protruding, and finger movements. This has been difficult to explain. In particular, it is not clear how newborn infants could know enough about their own bodies and movements, and how these map onto the bodies and movements of others, to be able to match their own felt movements to the seen movements of others. Prominent theories posit the existence of inborn mechanisms that automatically link visual input from the movements of others to the infant's already existing motor programs to produce the same movements. Such mechanisms would be instances of the inheritance of specific knowledge. In this review, we explain how current data argue against the existence of an inborn mechanism for linking seen actions with programs for performing those actions. We then sketch an alternative, multicausal explanation for the gradual development of imitation across infancy and beyond. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1410. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1410 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Neonatal imitation in context: Sensorimotor development in the perinatal period

“…This behavior is particularly interesting because newborn tongue protruding provides a large part of the evidence purporting to show that newborn human infants can imitate. Newborn imitation, in turn, is particularly interesting because of its implications for our understanding of the origins of knowledge (Jones 2017).…”

Neonatal imitation: Temporal characteristics in imitative response patterns

“…Opponents have suggested that what looks like an imitative response might be better explained through arousal processes or a coincidental match (Jones, ), an innate releasing mechanism (Anisfeld, ), as based on learning since a neonate does not have the cognitive capacity to “solve the correspondence problem that link self with other for imitation” (Heyes, , p. 6), or as a response dependent on the aerodigestive system (Keven & Akins, ; but see Meltzoff and Simpson et al. for critiques of this view).…”

“…Opponents have suggested that what looks like an imitative response might be better explained through arousal processes or a coincidental match (Jones, 1996(Jones, , 2017, an innate releasing mechanism (Anisfeld, 1996), as based on learning since a neonate does not have the cognitive capacity to "solve the correspondence problem that link self with other for imitation" (Heyes, 2016, p. 6), or as a response dependent on the aerodigestive system (Keven & Akins, 2017; but see Meltzoff 2017 andSimpson et al 2017 for critiques of this view). More specifically, Heyes proposes that an associative learning model explains how and why our capacity to imitate develops, whereas Vincini et al (2017) specifies an association by similarity process as most likely to explain early imitation.…”

Individual differences in neonatal “imitation” fail to predict early social cognitive behaviour

“…Although we cannot possibly prove absence, our comprehensive set of null results provides the most compelling form of evidence against neonatal imitation and the like me framework yet. Unless convincing contradictory evidence emerges, developmental psychologists must re‐evaluate the innate and environmental factors that contribute to the emergence of imitation and more complex social cognitive behaviour (Heyes, ; Jones, ; Oostenbroek et al, ).…”