Infant Imitation and Memory: Nine-Month-Olds in Immediate and Deferred Tests

Abstract

The ability of 9-month-old infants to imitate simple actions with novel objects was investigated. Both immediate and deferred imitation were tested, the latter by interposing a 24-hour delay between the stimulus-presentation and response periods. The results provide evidence for both immediate and deferred imitation; moreover, imitative responding was not significantly dampened by the 24-hour delay. The findings demonstrate that there exists some underlying capacity for deferring imitation of certain acts well under 1 year of age, and thus that this ability does not develop in a stagelike step function at about 18-24 months as commonly predicted. These findings also show that imitation in early infancy can span wide enough delays to be of potential service in social development; actions on novel objects that are observed one day can be stored by the child and repeated the next day. The study of deferred imitation provides a largely untapped method for investigating the nature and development of recall memory in the preverbal child.The study of infant imitation has attracted theorists from a variety of orientations. Perceptual and cognitive developmentalists are interested in imitation because the reproduction of a target act can be used to measure perception, motor control, the coordination of perception and action, and, under certain conditions, memory and representational abilities (Flavell, 1985;Meltzoff, 1985aMeltzoff, , 1985b. Imitation has also attracted the interest of socialdevelopmentalists, for it provides an efficient channel for early social learning. At least some of the skills of early childhood are learned via the observation of adult behavior, rather than through conditioning, trial and error, or individual maturational growth, and the origins and early development of such social learning warrant investigation (Bandura & Walters, 1963;Hartup & Coates, 1970). Finally, Piagetian psychology has focused on imitative development as playing a vital role in the transition from a purely sensorimotor level to a more representational form of intellectual organization (Flavell, 1985;Piaget, 1962).For each of these approaches, deferred imitation takes on special importance. Cognitive theorists highlight deferred imitation as a way of investigating long-term memory in preverbal infants. Deferred imitation is relevant to social theorists because the infant or child will not always be able to reproduce each adult action as soon as it is demonstrated; thus, for imitation to fulfill its social utility, the infant or child must be capable of initiating imitation long after the target display has terminated. Finally, Piagetians focus on deferred imitation as a developmental milestone that first emerges at about 18-24 months (during sensorimotor stage 6) contemporaneously with pretend play and productive language as part of a general emergence of the "symbolic function" (Inhelder, 1971;Lézine, 1973; Piattelli-Palmerini, 1980;Sinclair, 1969Sinclair, , 1970.Only recently have the origins and development of de...

Object Permanence After a 24-Hr Delay and Leaving the Locale of Disappearance: The Role of Memory, Space, and Identity.

“…There is no delay imposed between showing the object on Day 2 and infants' being able to act on it. Under these circumstances, infants in the same age range tested by Diamond (1985) and in the current study exhibit representation and memory after delays compatible with those reported here, that is, 24 hr or longer (Klein & Meltzoff, 1999;Meltzoff, 1988aMeltzoff, , 1988b.…”

“…For example, studies that investigated retention using deferred imitation (Hayne, Boniface, & Barr, 2000;Klein & Meltzoff, 1999;Meltzoff, 1988b) have documented recall memory after delays of 24 hr and longer at 6, 9, and 12 months of age. One difference between the deferred-imitation and the object-occlusion procedures is that the former involves recalling an action to perform on an object, whereas the latter involves recalling an object's hidden location.…”

Case Study of the Development of an Infant with Autism from Birth to Two Years of Age

“…He also imitated other novel actions, including pressing a button, pulling apart a dumbbell, and pushing down a collapsible cup. It is noteworthy that the tests were administered in a highly structured way that has been found to facilitate performance in nonverbal infants and children with Down syndrome (Meltzoff, 1988;Rast & Meltzoff, 1995).…”

Infant imitation after a 1-week delay: Long-term memory for novel acts and multiple stimuli.

“…Meltzoff (1985) found deferred imitation of a simple action after a 1-day delay in 14-month-olds. Recently, it has been reported that infants as young as 9 months of age can observe an adult's behavior on one day and then delay their production of it for 24 hr (Meltzoff, 1988a).…”

“…A second type of design, sometimes reported in the literature, is one in which infants are permitted to imitate the adult immediately and then to repeat the imitation after a delay without any further modeling. McCall et al (1977) used both types of procedures, and the studies by Meltzoff (1985Meltzoff ( , 1988a used only the type in which no immediate imitation was permitted. These authors and others (Flavell, 1985;Piaget, 1962) all concur that the more stringent test of memory and deferred imitation is posed by the first type of design (the one adopted here), in which the infants are not merely repeating their own behavior but committing to memory an act that is as yet unperformed by them.…”