Explaining facial imitation: a theoretical model

Abstract

A long-standing puzzle in developmental psychology is how infants imitate gestures they cannot see themselves perform (facial gestures). Two critical issues are: (a) the metric infants use to detect cross-modal equivalences in human acts and (b) the process by which they correct their imitative errors. We address these issues in a detailed model of the mechanisms underlying facial imitation. The model can be extended to encompass other types of imitation. The model capitalizes on three new theoretical concepts. First, organ identification is the means by which infants relate parts of their own bodies to corresponding ones of the adult's. Second, body babbling (infants' movement practice gained through self-generated activity) provides experience mapping movements to the resulting body configurations. Third, organ relations provide the metric by which infant and adult acts are perceived in commensurate terms. In imitating, infants attempt to match the organ relations they see exhibited by the adults with those they feel themselves make. We show how development restructures the meaning and function of early imitation. We argue that important aspects of later social cognition are rooted in the initial crossmodal equivalence between self and other found in newborns.

Effector-Dependent Learning by Observation of a Finger Movement Sequence.

“…Effector-dependent learning by observation of a finger movement sequence is consistent with the associative sequence learning model of observational learning (Heyes, 2001) because it proposes that movement observation can activate motor representations directly, that is, without intermediate representation in a symbolic or amodal code. The results of the present experiments are harder to reconcile with theories that assume that observational learning is invariably mediated by symbolic (Bandura, 1986) or amodal (Meltzoff & Moore, 1997) representation. Neither social learning theory nor active intermodal matching theory specify the nature of symbolic or amodal codes, but they both imply that these codes are of a kind that supports a broad range of inferences.…”

Neonatal imitation: Temporal characteristics in imitative response patterns

“…In conclusion, we interpret our findings in support of the AIM model proposed by Meltzoff (; Meltzoff & Moore, ) although other theories exist that might accommodate our results. An alternative theory of special interest is the idea of rapid learning based on a filial imprinting process as proposed by Nagy et al.…”

“…Support for an imitative response pattern was found for TP during the first time window (the first 60 s of the experiment), a finding in line with a large number of previous papers that have reported evidence for an ability to imitate TP (see summaries in Meltzoff & Moore, ; Meltzoff, Murray et al, ; Nagy et al., ; Simpson et al., ). It has also been proposed that evidence of an early imitative capacity exists for TP only (Anisfeld, ), but this is countered by our findings of neonatal imitation of MO as well.…”

Neural mirroring mechanisms and imitation in human infants

“…Our own findings show that self-experience influences infants' neural responses when observing others [60], and there is good evidence at the psychological level showing that interactive experiences with social partners lead to developmental shifts in infant imitation and other aspects of early social understanding [16,25]. The application of neuroscience techniques to human newborns may help to uncover which aspects of human neural mirroring mechanisms are functional at birth, and how such mechanisms are altered through maturation, self-generated experiences, observational learning and social interchanges with others.…”