Rethinking 'rational imitation' in 14-month-old infants: a perceptual distraction approach.

Miriam Beisert,Wolfgang Prinz,Roman Liepelt,Moritz M Daum,Franziska Jung,Norbert Zmyj,Pier Francesco Ferrari

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032563

Abstract

In their widely noticed study, Gergely, Bekkering, and Király (2002) showed that 14-month-old infants imitated an unusual action only if the model freely chose to perform this action and not if the choice of the action could be ascribed to external constraints. They attributed this kind of selective imitation to the infants' capacity of understanding the principle of rational action. In the current paper, we present evidence that a simpler approach of perceptual distraction may be more appropriate to explain their results. When we manipulated the saliency of context stimuli in the two original conditions, the results were exactly opposite to what rational imitation predicts. Based on these findings, we reject the claim that the notion of rational action plays a key role in selective imitation in 14-month-olds.

Highlights

It is a demanding task for infants to filter relevant information from the enormous amount of input they receive from their environment
The authors proposed an intriguing explanation for this phenomenon, referring to a rational action account [3]: Infants imitated selectively because they first evaluated the rationality of the model’s action, taking into account her goal as well as the means available to her to achieve it under the given situational constraints, and conducted the same means-ends analysis to guide their own action
The results of the present study suggest that a simpler approach, based on perceptual distraction, can explain these findings

Summary

Introduction

It is a demanding task for infants to filter relevant information from the enormous amount of input they receive from their environment. The likelihood of imitation was considerably reduced when external constraints in the model’s situation justified her selection of the unconventional head action (i.e., when the model’s hands were occupied). The authors proposed an intriguing explanation for this phenomenon, referring to a rational action account [3]: Infants imitated selectively because they first evaluated the rationality of the model’s action, taking into account her goal as well as the means available to her to achieve it under the given situational constraints, and conducted the same means-ends analysis to guide their own action (which was always performed under unconstrained conditions). In the hands-occupied condition, infants did not imitate the head touch – presumably because they understood that the model was forced to use the unusual means (head) whereas they themselves were free to use the usual means (hands)

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Conclusion