Motor System Activation Predicts Goal Imitation in 7-Month-Old Infants

Abstract

The current study harnessed the variability in infants’ neural and behavioral responses as a novel method for evaluating the potential relationship between motor system activation and social behavior. We used electroencephalography (EEG) to record neural activity as 7-month-old infants observed and responded to the actions of an experimenter. To determine whether motor system activation predicted subsequent imitation behavior, we assessed event-related desynchronization (ERD) at central sites during action observation as a function of subsequent behavior. Greater mu desynchronization over central sites was observed prior reproducing an actor’s goal (i.e., a goal response) compared to when infants selected to act on the non-goal object (i.e., a non-goal response). We also found that mu desynchronization during action execution predicted infants’ later propensity to reproduce others’ goal-directed behavior. These results provide the first evidence that motor system activation predicts goal imitation during infancy.

Social Models Enhance Apes’ Memory for Novel Events

“…Data from the human developmental literature support this theory. Infants are more likely to imitate the goal-directed actions of a human than an inanimate object2122, and this rate of imitation is modulated by the extent to which infants’ own motor systems are recruited during action encoding23. Motor “mirroring” is also evident in nonhuman primates when observing agentive actions24, with differential motor activation across species potentially accounting for variation in imitative abilities25.…”

Neural correlates of infant action processing relate to theory of mind in early childhood

“…Frontal theta activity has been shown to predict object recognition and attentional engagement in infants (Begus, Gliga, & Southgate, ; , & Gliga, 2; Orekhova, Stroganova, & Posikera, ; Orekhova, Stroganova, Posikera, & Elam, ) and in adults is linked to attentional and memory processes (Klimesch, ; Sauseng et al, ). Furthermore, occipital alpha reflects attention to external stimuli and has been shown to respond strongly during infant action perception tasks (Cannon et al, ; Filippi et al, ; Yoo, Cannon, Thorpe, & Fox, ).…”

“…A number of findings suggest that action execution shows important associations with action encoding. For example, infants’ own actions shape action perception (e.g., Ambrosini et al, ; Lloyd‐Fox, Wu, Richards, Elwell, & Johnson, ; Sommerville, Woodward, & Needham, ; van Elk, Schie, Hunnius, Vesper, & Bekkering, ) and there are associations between sensorimotor mu‐ERD during action execution and infant goal encoding behavior (Filippi et al, ). Despite several hints in the literature that infants’ own actions are meaningfully associated with goal encoding, to date, surprisingly little work has examined the possibility that infants’ own actions could be associated with TOM.…”

“…The current study investigates whether variability in neural signatures during action processing (both action encoding and action execution) predict TOM at age 3. To do so, we conducted a longitudinal follow‐up of infants who participated in an infant imitation task with simultaneous recording of EEG (originally reported in Filippi et al, ). We chose to longitudinally follow the children in the Filippi et al, study because this EEG study provided rich data about both infants’ neural response and behavior during action execution and during action encoding.…”

“…To do so, we conducted a longitudinal follow‐up of infants who participated in an infant imitation task with simultaneous recording of EEG (originally reported in Filippi et al, ). We chose to longitudinally follow the children in the Filippi et al, study because this EEG study provided rich data about both infants’ neural response and behavior during action execution and during action encoding. In this sample, systematic imitation behavior was directly linked to infants’ neural responses during action encoding and action execution.…”