Infants show stability of goal-directed imitation.
Previous studies have reported that infants selectively reproduce observed actions and have argued that this selectivity reflects understanding of intentions and goals, or goal-directed imitation. We reasoned that if selective imitation of goal-directed actions reflects understanding of intentions, infants should demonstrate stability across perceptually and causally dissimilar imitation tasks. To this end, we employed a longitudinal within-participants design to compare the performance of 37 infants on two imitation tasks, with one administered at 13 months and one administered at 14 months. Infants who selectively imitated goal-directed actions in an object-cued task at 13 months also selectively imitated goal-directed actions in a vocal-cued task at 14 months. We conclude that goal-directed imitation reflects a general ability to interpret behavior in terms of mental states.
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AT, UK.
Elena
E
Sakkalou
Kate
K
Ellis-Davies
Nia C
NC
Fowler
Elma E
EE
Hilbrink
Merideth
M
Gattis
D001288:Attention; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D007223:Infant; D018730:Infant Behavior / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D033182:Intention; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance