The development of visual co-action in infancy

Abstract

The purpose was to examine (1) whether infants are capable of imitation or not and (2) to assess their ability for information processing, specifically for visual perception. Twenty-one infants were presented four kinds of facial expressions (tongue protrusion, opened mouth, mouth protrusion and eye blink) at the ages of six, ten, and fourteen weeks. Infants' responses were videotaped and analyzed. Their behavior indicated that six-week-olds could not differentiate between the four stimuli. They could not imitate the facial expressions, because their perception did not differentiate the stimuli sufficiently yet. Responses by ten- and fourteen-week-olds indicated that their perceptual processes had developed sufficiently to differentiate stimuli, and make some matching behaviors with the processed information. Some matching responses, open mouth and mouth protrusion, were less frequent at fourteen weeks than at ten weeks. However, the overall matching responses were greater among fourteen than ten week olds. Apparently with the development of perceptual processes, matching responses also emerge.