Development Of Imitation Research Articles

The Social Function of Imitation in Development

Imitation is a deeply social process. Here, I review evidence that children use imitation as a means by which to affiliate with others. For example, children imitate the actions of others more closely when they seek a positive social relationship with them and respond positively to being imitated. Furthermore, children infer something of the relationships between third parties by observing their imitative exchanges. Understanding the social nature of imitation requires exploring the nature of the social relationships between children and the individuals they imitate. Thus, in addition to discussing children's own goals in imitative situations, I review the social pressures children experience to imitate in particular ways, learning to conform to the conventions and rituals of their group. In the latter part of this article, I discuss the extent to which this perspective on imitation can help us to understand broader topics within social development, including the origins of human cultural differences.

Perception drives production across sensory modalities: A network for sensorimotor integration of visual speech

Sensory information is critical for movement control, both for defining the targets of actions and providing feedback during planning or ongoing movements. This holds for speech motor control as well, where both auditory and somatosensory information have been shown to play a key role. Recent clinical research demonstrates that individuals with severe speech production deficits can show a dramatic improvement in fluency during online mimicking of an audiovisual speech signal suggesting the existence of a visuomotor pathway for speech motor control. Here we used fMRI in healthy individuals to identify this new visuomotor circuit for speech production. Participants were asked to perceive and covertly rehearse nonsense syllable sequences presented auditorily, visually, or audiovisually. The motor act of rehearsal, which is prima facie the same whether or not it is cued with a visible talker, produced different patterns of sensorimotor activation when cued by visual or audiovisual speech (relative to auditory speech). In particular, a network of brain regions including the left posterior middle temporal gyrus and several frontoparietal sensorimotor areas activated more strongly during rehearsal cued by a visible talker versus rehearsal cued by auditory speech alone. Some of these brain regions responded exclusively to rehearsal cued by visual or audiovisual speech. This result has significant implications for models of speech motor control, for the treatment of speech output disorders, and for models of the role of speech gesture imitation in development.

Language and imitation in development

Noting the central role accorded imitation in the origins of symbolic functioning, language development, and identity formation, as well as its relationship to aspects of individuation, the authors have reviewed the problem of imitation from both cognitive developmental and psychoanalytic perspectives. They have specifically delineated piagetian views regarding the origins of imitation and traced its relationship to the emergence of language, while attempting to clarify various psychoanalytic formulations on this topic. This dual theoretical perspective is then reconsidered within the framework of the current empirical infancy literature. Pathological sequelae of imitation are also reviewed in relation to their impact upon ego formation and the process of socialization. Tracing a cognitive developmental line, the authors then discuss the relationship between imitation and the emergence of language; language is also considered as an important vehicle of communication which furthers and enhances ego development and object relations. The authors conclude with a partial integration of piagetian and psychoanalytic hypotheses regarding imitation and identity formation with the aim of stimulating further discussion on this topic.