Over‐imitation in children with autism and Down syndrome

Typically developing children have been shown to imitate the specific means used by an adult to achieve an object‐directed outcome, even if a more efficient method is available. It has been argued that this behaviour can be attributed to social and communicative motivations. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), relative to children with Down syndrome (DS), show a reduced tendency to copy the exact means used by an adult to produce a novel outcome. To achieve this a sample of 34 children (22 with ASD and 12 with DS) were given a test of object‐directed imitation. Contrary to expectation, children in both groups imitated the specific method of the model to the same high extent. This finding is in line with suggestions that object‐directed imitation is relatively spared in children with autism but is surprising given arguments linking such imitation to socially based motivations. Nevertheless, children's ability to successfully copy the model was associated with their communicative ability, providing some support for the link between imitation and communication.     

Exploring the Relation Between Memory, Gestural Communication, and the Emergence of Language in Infancy: A Longitudinal Study

The relationship between recall memory, visual recognition memory, social communication, and the emergence of language skills was measured in a longitudinal study. Thirty typically developing Swedish children were tested at 6, 9 and 14 months. The result showed that, in combination, visual recognition memory at 6 months, deferred imitation at 9 months and turn-taking skills at 14 months could explain 41% of the variance in the infants' production of communicative gestures as measured by a Swedish variant of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI). In this statistical model, deferred imitation stood out as the strongest predictor.     

From intersubjectivity to subjectivity: the transformative roles of emotional intimacy and imitation

How is the transition between intersubjectivity and subjectivity accomplished? While many developmental theorists have argued that social interaction gives rise to individualistic capacities (e.g. representation, language, consciousness), relatively few theorists have attempted to identify the precise mechanisms that might be responsible for this transformation. The present paper addresses this gap by drawing attention to the central role played by emotional intimacy. It is argued that subjectivity arises out of intimate engagement with others, and particular attention is given to the role of imitation in fostering such intimacy. While the primary focus is on infant development, links are made to work with atypical populations because they offer valuable insights into the developmental processes under consideration here. The ultimate aim of the paper is to demonstrate that by recognizing the emotional intimacy inherent within adult–infant interactions, new solutions are offered to theoretical problems that developmental psychology continues to face in accounting for the origins of subjectivity. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determinants of imitation of hand-to-body gestures in 2- and 3-year-old children

Twenty children, ten 2-year-olds and ten 3-year-olds, participated in an AB procedure. In the baseline phase, each child was trained the same four matching relations to criterion under intermittent reinforcement. During the subsequent imitation test, the experimenter modeled a total of 20 target gestures (six trials each) interspersed with intermittently reinforced baseline trials. In each session, target gestures were selected in a pre-randomized sequence from: Set 1--ear touches; Set 2--shoulder touches; Set 3--midarm touches; and Set 4--wrist touches; subjects' responses to targets were not reinforced. In each target set, half the gestures featured in nursery matching games and were termed common targets whereas the remainder, which were topographically similar but did not feature in the games, served as uncommon targets. The children produced significantly more matching responses to common target models than to uncommon ones. Common responses were also produced as mismatches to uncommon target models more often than vice versa. Response accuracy did not improve over trials, suggesting that "parity" did not serve as a conditioned reinforcer. All children showed a strong bias for "mirroring"--responding in the same hemispace as the modeler. The 2-year-olds produced more matching errors than the 3-year-olds and most children showed a bias for responding with their right hands. The strong effects of training environment (nursery matching games) are consistent with a Skinnerian account, but not a cognitive goal theory account, of imitation in young children.     

Mother versus stranger: a triadic situation of imitation at the end of the first year of life

This study presents two experiments investigating 8‐ and 12‐month‐old infants' imitative behaviour. Seventy‐two 8‐month‐olds and seventy‐two 12‐month‐olds were observed in a triadic situation which included their mother and a stranger. Depending on the condition, either the mother or the stranger acted as the demonstrator and either stayed close or withdrew after the demonstration, during the response period. In addition to imitative acts, visual exploration and smiles addressed, respectively, to each partner were computed. Results showed that at both ages, neither the familiarity nor the position of the partner has an effect on the number of target gestures that are imitated. At 12 months, infants looked and smiled more at the stranger when he demonstrated target actions but no difference was found when the mother acted as demonstrator. Moreover, 12‐month‐old infants looked more at the demonstrating partner immediately after their first imitation. At 8 months, infants paid more attention to the stranger in all conditions except when the mother performed the target actions and moved away, a pattern that suggests a referencing to the mother. Results from the gaze and smile variables suggest that with age different motivations (social contact, exploration of objects) induce imitation. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

摹仿与原始社会中的伦理道德

摹仿在人类原始文化中的作用和功能是什么 ?传统的解释多集中在美学领域。从文化人类学的角度 ,探讨摹仿在原始社会物质生产和精神生产中的巨大作用及其在原始社会伦理道德意识的起源、形成和传承中作用是有重要意义的。     

目标感染研究述评

目标感染是动机领域新近出现的一个概念（Aarts等,2004）,所谓目标感染指的是个体可以自动的从他人行为信息中推测其目标并无意识的追求这一目标。目标感染在激活对象、复杂程度等方面不同于单纯的行为模仿,在行为性质、意识水平等方面又区别于观察学习。目标状态可及性、目标情感效价等因素会影响目标感染现象的发生。已有研究中通常采用目标相关词汇、社会信息两种方式进行目标的激活。作为对有意识目标追求的补充,目标感染的研究促进了我们对个体行为的理解。未来研究尚可就观察者特征、目标熟悉程度、被观察者数量等因素对目标感染的影响开展进一步的探讨。     

DO INFANTS SHOW GENERALIZED IMITATION OF GESTURES? II. THE EFFECTS OF SKILLS TRAINING AND MULTIPLE EXEMPLAR MATCHING TRAINING

The determinants of generalized imitation of manual gestures were investigated in 1‐ to 2‐year‐old infants. Eleven infants were first trained eight baseline matching relations; then, four novel gestures that the infants did not match in probe trials were selected as target behaviors. Next, in a generalized imitation test in which matching responses to baseline models were intermittently reinforced, but matching responses to target models were not eligible for reinforcement, the infants matched baseline models but not the majority of their target behaviors. To ensure their failure to match the target behaviors was not due to motor constraints, the infants were trained, in a multiple‐baseline procedure, to produce the target responses under stimulus control that did not include an antecedent model of the target behavior. There was no evidence of generalized imitation in subsequent tests. When the infants were next trained to match each target behavior to criterion (tested in extinction) in a multiple‐baseline‐across‐behaviors procedure, only 2 infants continued to match all their targets in subsequent tests; the remaining infants matched only some of them. Seven infants were next given mixed matching training with the target behaviors to criterion (tested in extinction); they subsequently matched these targets without reinforcement when interspersed with trials on which matching responses to baseline models were intermittently reinforced. In repeat tests, administered at 3‐week intervals, these 7 children (and 2 that did not take part in mixed matching training) continued to match most of their target behaviors. The results support a trained matching account, but provide no evidence of generalized imitation, in 1‐ to 2‐year‐old infants.     

Neonatal auditory evoked responses are related to perinatal maternal anxiety

Maternal stress and anxiety during pregnancy are related to negative developmental outcomes for offspring, both physiological and psychological, from the fetal period through early adolescence. This robust relationship is likely to be partly explained by alterations in fetal neurodevelopmental programming, calling for further examination of neurophysiologically-based cognitive markers that may be related to the altered structure–function relationships that contribute to these negative developmental outcomes. The current investigation examined the relationship between perinatal maternal anxiety and neonatal auditory evoked responses (AERs) to mother and stranger voices. Results indicated that neonates of low-anxiety mothers displayed more negative frontal slow wave amplitudes in response to their mother’s voice compared to a female stranger’s voice, while neonates of high-anxiety mothers showed the opposite pattern. These findings suggest that neonates of perinatally anxious mothers may demonstrate neurophysiologically-based differences in attentional allocation. This could represent one pathway to the negative psychological outcomes seen throughout development in offspring of anxious mothers.