Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T21:11:48.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Animal studies help clarify misunderstandings about neonatal imitation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2017

Elizabeth A. Simpson ,
Sarah E. Maylott ,
Mikael Heimann ,
Francys Subiaul ,
Annika Paukner ,
Stephen J. Suomi  and
Pier F. Ferrari
Elizabeth A. Simpson
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33146. [email protected]@miami.eduhttp://www.psy.miami.edu/faculty/esimpsonhttp://www.psy.miami.edu/scl/people.phtml
Sarah E. Maylott
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33146. [email protected]@miami.eduhttp://www.psy.miami.edu/faculty/esimpsonhttp://www.psy.miami.edu/scl/people.phtml
Mikael Heimann
Affiliation:
Department of Behavioral Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden. [email protected]://www.ibl.liu.se/medarbetare/heimann-mikael?l=en&sc=true
Francys Subiaul
Affiliation:
Department of Speech and Hearing Science, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052. [email protected]://www.subiaul.com
Annika Paukner
Affiliation:
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Dickerson, MD 20842. [email protected]@lce.nichd.nih.govhttps://www.nichd.nih.gov/about/staff/Pages/bio.aspx?nih_id=0012459403https://www.nichd.nih.gov/about/staff/Pages/bio.aspx?nih_id=0010152932
Stephen J. Suomi
Affiliation:
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Dickerson, MD 20842. [email protected]@lce.nichd.nih.govhttps://www.nichd.nih.gov/about/staff/Pages/bio.aspx?nih_id=0012459403https://www.nichd.nih.gov/about/staff/Pages/bio.aspx?nih_id=0010152932
Pier F. Ferrari
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Università di Parma, 43123 Parma, Italy. [email protected]://web-ast.dsi.cnrs.fr/l3c/owa/personnel.frame_infos?p_etat=pe&p_numero_sel=1347787&p_i=0&p_nb_res=0&p_numero=0 Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, CNRS / Université Claude Bernard Lyon, 69675 Bron Cedex, Lyon, France.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Empirical studies are incompatible with the proposal that neonatal imitation is arousal driven or declining with age. Nonhuman primate studies reveal a functioning brain mirror system from birth, developmental continuity in imitation and later sociability, and the malleability of neonatal imitation, shaped by the early environment. A narrow focus on arousal effects and reflexes may grossly underestimate neonatal capacities.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e400
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Dettmer, A. M., Kaburu, S. S. K., Simpson, E. A., Paukner, A., Sclafani, V., Byers, K. L., Murphy, A. M., Miller, M., Marquez, N., Miller, G. M., Suomi, S. J. & Ferrari, P. F. (2016) Neonatal face-to-face interactions promote later social behaviour in infant rhesus monkeys. Nature Communications 7:11940. Available at: http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11940.Google Scholar
Ferrari, P. F., Paukner, A., Ruggiero, A., Darcey, L., Unbehagen, S. & Suomi, S. J. (2009b) Interindividual differences in neonatal imitation and the development of action chains in rhesus macaques. Child Development 80:1057–68. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01316.x/full.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ferrari, P. F., Vanderwert, R. E., Paukner, A., Bower, S., Suomi, S. J. & Fox, N. A. (2012) Distinct EEG amplitude suppression to facial gestures as evidence for a mirror mechanism in newborn monkeys. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 24:1165–72. http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/jocn_a_00198#.V73S1ZMrKRs.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gerson, S., Simpson, E. A. & Paukner, A. (2016) Drivers of social cognitive development in human and non-human primate infants. In: Frontiers in developmental science series: Social cognition, ed. Sommerville, J. & Decety, J.. Psychology.Google Scholar
Heimann, M. (1989) Neonatal imitation, gaze aversion, and mother-infant interaction. Infant Behavior and Development 12:495–505. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0163638389900295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heimann, M. (1991) Neonatal imitation: A social and biological phenomenon. In: Behavioral biology: The neuroendocrine axis, ed. Archer, T. & Hansen, S., pp. 173–86. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Heimann, M. (2001) Neonatal imitation: A “fuzzy” phenomenon. In: Emerging cognitive abilities in early infancy, ed. Lacerda, F., von Hofsten, C. & Heimann, M., pp. 231–46. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Heimann, M. (2002) Notes on individual differences and the assumed elusiveness of neonatal imitation. In: The imitative mind: Development, evolution, and brain bases, ed. Meltzoff, A. N. & Prinz, W., pp. 74–84. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heimann, M., Nelson, K. E. & Schaller, J. (1989) Neonatal imitation of tongue protrusion and mouth opening: Methodological aspects and evidence of early individual differences. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 30(2):90–101.Google Scholar
Jacobson, S. W. (1979) Matching behavior in the young infant. Child Development 50(2):425–30. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/1129418.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaburu, S. K., Paukner, A., Simpson, E. A., Suomi, S. J. & Ferrari, P. F. (2016) Neonatal imitation predicts infant rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) social and anxiety-related behaviours at one year. Scientific Reports 6:34997. Available at: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep34997.Google Scholar
Kennedy-Costantini, S., Slaughter, V. & Nielsen, M. (2016) Why are you copying me? Functional explanations for neonatal imitation. Poster presented at the 2016 International Conference on Infant Studies, New Orleans, Louisiana, May 26–28, 2016.Google Scholar
Kuhl, P. K. & Meltzoff, A. N. (1996) Infant vocalizations in response to speech: Vocal imitation and developmental change. Journal of the Acoustic Society of America 100:2425–38. Available at: http://scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/jasa/100/4/10.1121/1.417951.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maratos, O. (1998) Neonatal, early and later imitation: Same order phenomena? In: The development of sensory, motor and cognitive capacities in early infancy: From perception to cognition, ed. Simion, F. & Butterworth, G., pp. 145–60. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Meltzoff, A. N. & Moore, M. K. (1994) Imitation, memory, and the representation of persons. Infant Behavior and Development 17:83–99. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0163638394900248.Google Scholar
Meltzoff, A. N., Murray, L., Simpson, E. A., Heimann, M., Nagy, E., Nadel, J., Pederson, E. J., Brooks, R., Messinger, D., De Pascalis, L., Subiaul, F., Paukner, A. & Ferrari, P. F. (2017) Re-examination of Oostenbroek et al. (2016) – Evidence for neonatal imitation of tongue protrusion. Developmental Science. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.12609/full.Google Scholar
Nagy, E., Pilling, K., Orvos, H. & Molnar, P. (2013) Imitation of tongue protrusion in human neonates: Specificity of the response in a large sample. Developmental Psychology 49(9):1628–38. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031127.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oostenbroek, J., Suddendorf, T., Nielsen, M., Redshaw, J., Kennedy-Costantini, S., Davis, J., Clark, S. & Slaughter, V. (2016) Comprehensive longitudinal study challenges the existence of neonatal imitation in humans. Current Biology 26(10):1334–38. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.03.047.Google Scholar
Paukner, A., Ferrari, P. F. & Suomi, S. J. (2011) Delayed imitation of lipsmacking gestures by infant rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). PLoS ONE 6(12):e28848. Available at: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0028848.Google Scholar
Paukner, A., Pederson, E. J. & Simpson, E. A. (2017) Testing the arousal hypothesis of neonatal imitation in infant rhesus macaques. PLoS ONE 12(6):e0178864.Google Scholar
Paukner, A., Simpson, E. A., Ferrari, P. F., Mrozek, T. & Suomi, S. J. (2014) Neonatal imitation predicts how infants engage with faces. Developmental Science 17:833–40. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.12207/full.Google Scholar
Simpson, E. A., Miller, G. M., Ferrari, P. F., Suomi, S. J. & Paukner, A. (2016) Neonatal imitation and early social experience predict gaze following abilities in infant monkeys. Scientific Reports 6:20233. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep20233.Google Scholar
Simpson, E. A., Murray, L., Paukner, A. & Ferrari, P. F. (2014a) The mirror neuron system as revealed through neonatal imitation: Presence from birth, predictive power and evidence of plasticity. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 369(1644):20130289. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0289.Google Scholar
Simpson, E. A., Paukner, A., Sclafani, V., Suomi, S. J. & Ferrari, P. F. (2013) Lipsmacking imitation skill in newborn macaques is predictive of social partner discrimination. PLoS ONE 8:1–6. Available at: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082921.Google Scholar
Simpson, E. A., Paukner, A., Suomi, S. J. & Ferrari, P. F. (2014b) Visual attention during neonatal imitation in newborn macaque monkeys. Developmental Psychobiology 56:864–70. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dev.21146/full.Google Scholar
Simpson, E. A., Paukner, A., Suomi, S. J. & Ferrari, P. F. (2015) Neonatal imitation and its sensorimotor mechanism. In: New frontiers in mirror neuron research, ed. Ferrari, P. F. & Rizzolatti, G., pp. 296–314. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Suddendorf, T., Oostenbroek, J., Nielsen, M. & Slaughter, V. (2013) Is newborn imitation developmentally homologous to later social-cognitive skills? Developmental Psychobiology 55:52–58. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dev.21005/full.Google Scholar
Vanderwert, R. E., Simpson, E. A., Paukner, A., Suomi, S. J, Fox, N. & Ferrari, P. F. (2015) Early social experience affects neural activity to affiliative facial gestures in newborn nonhuman primates. Developmental Neuroscience 37:243–52. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1159/000381538.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed