Event Abstract Back to Event Is the human mirror system operational at birth? Virginia Slaughter1*, Janine Oostenbroek1, Thomas Suddendorf1 and Mark Nielsen1 1 University of Queensland, School of Psychology, Australia i. Background Whether or not mirror neurons exist in the human brain has been a hot topic of debate over the past two decades. Single cell recordings provide clear evidence that they exist in monkeys, but no such direct evidence exists for humans. As such, some researchers have relied on indirect lines of evidence, such as our capacity to imitate, to argue the case for a human mirror system. Evidence that human newborns imitate facial and hand gestures (Meltzoff, A.N., & Moore, M.K., 1977, Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates, Science 198, 75-78) has led to the suggestion that humans have an innate mirroring system that is operational from birth. We evaluate this proposal with reference to data from the first large-scale longitudinal study of human newborn imitation. ii. Methods We assessed imitation of a range of facial and manual gestures when infants were 1, 3 and 6 weeks of age. A female experimenter modeled the gestures to infants when they were in a quiet alert state. Infants’ responses were videotaped. Infants’ facial and hand gestures were later coded from the videotapes by trained coders who were blind to the model’s actions. iii. Results The data reveal that only a single gesture—tongue protrusion—was imitated during the first 6 weeks of life, and that 50% of the newborns tested, failed to imitate even this gesture. iv. Discussion These data cast serious doubt on the proposal that humans are born with a functional mirror neuron system. Acknowledgements This research was funded by the Australian Research Council (DP0985969). Keywords: mirror neuron system, Imitation, human neonates, Longitudinal Studies, tongue protrusion Conference: ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference, Clayton, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Nov - 1 Dec, 2013. Presentation Type: Oral Topic: Motor Citation: Slaughter V, Oostenbroek J, Suddendorf T and Nielsen M (2013). Is the human mirror system operational at birth?. Conference Abstract: ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.212.00043 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 25 Oct 2013; Published Online: 25 Nov 2013. * Correspondence: Prof. Virginia Slaughter, University of Queensland, School of Psychology, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia, vps@psy.uq.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Virginia Slaughter Janine Oostenbroek Thomas Suddendorf Mark Nielsen Google Virginia Slaughter Janine Oostenbroek Thomas Suddendorf Mark Nielsen Google Scholar Virginia Slaughter Janine Oostenbroek Thomas Suddendorf Mark Nielsen PubMed Virginia Slaughter Janine Oostenbroek Thomas Suddendorf Mark Nielsen Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.