Imitation over a series of trials without feedback: Age six months

Abstract

The 6-month-old infant is capable of imitation superior to previous reports, when he or she controls the timing of the model presented. By meeting the experimenter's gaze, 34 infants elicited a rhythmic burst of five mouth movements, opening and closing. After many trials a majority of the infants themselves produced a burst of two or more such movements. Although no universal sequence of acts emerged from the data, a sequence of accommodation was observed: (1) an orienting to the experimenter; (2) a series of imitations of single features of the model, beginning with mouth movements; (3) a string of two or more features of the model; and finally (4) integrating the features into bursts of mouth opening and closing. The findings are regarded as consistent with Piaget's general view of sensory-motor development. However, these subjects over a series of trials gradually imitated movements they could not see themselves make. The sequence of accommodation resembled the sequence of stages usually found in the development of imitation, when imitation is defined as an immediate response to one or two presentations of a model.