Development of imitation & action understanding

Question 1

What is imitation?

Answer 1

• copying of a behaviour

- a way to transfer info between individuals and down generations without the need for genetic inheritance

Question 2

What are perceptually transparent actions?

Answer 2

Actions that yield similar perceptual inputs when they are observed and executed

The imitator must determine which motor commands to use to reproduce, from a third-party perspective, the sensory consequences of the actor’s movement

Question 3

What are perceptually opaque actions?

Answer 3

Actions that can’t be observed by the actor

- e.g. facial expressions, whole body actions

Question 4

Heyes suggested 2 sources of sensorimotor experience that account for the emergence of associations for opaque actions.
What are those sources?

Answer 4

1. Experience mediated by mirror reflections (the motor representation (“smile”) is paired with the corresponding sensory perception (sight of a smiling face))
2. Experience of being imitated by others (e.g. Malatesta and Haviland (1982) – parents imitate young infants → when infant ‘stumbles across’ the motor plan to e.g. frown, this may be paired with the sight of their parent’s frowning face)

Question 5

According to Uzgiris (1972), what types of actions do infants tend to imitate first?

Answer 5

Perceptually transparent actions

Question 6

Who found that perceptually transparent actions were imitated 6 months before perceptually opaque actions?

Answer 6

Jones (2007)

Question 7

What does the evolutionary perspective say about imitation?

Will newborns be good at imitation?

Answer 7

• imitation is an innate mechanism that matches observed actions onto executed actions
• newborns will be good at it

Question 8

What does the experimental perspective say about imitation?

Will newborns be good at imitation?

Answer 8

• infants learn to match their expressions to those of others
• newborns won’t be good at it

Question 9

Which 3 facial gestures (+ neutral expression) did Meltzoff and Moore (1997) perform to newborns in their study?

Answer 9

• mouth widening
• lips pursing
• tongue protruding

Question 10

What did Meltzoff and Moore (1997) find? Does it support the evolutionary or experimental perspective?

Answer 10

Newborns imitated all 3 actions

- imitation is innate (evolutionary)

Question 11

Meltzoff and Moore (1994) claim that early facial imitation is based on…

Answer 11

…Active Intermodal Mapping (AIM).

Question 12

What type of process is imitation? What is it captured by?

Answer 12

Imitation is a matching-to-target process, captured by the proprioceptive loop

Question 13

What is our motor performance evaluated against?

Answer 13

It is evaluated against the seen target

- this serves as a basis for correction

Question 14

Perceived and produced actions are coded within which type of framework? What does it allow infants to do?

Answer 14

They are coded within a common supramodal framework

It allows infants to detect equivalences between their own acts and ones they see

Question 15

What is the core requirement for imitation?

Answer 15

The ability to solve the correspondence problem (= translate visual info from the modelled action into matching motor output)

Question 16

Who proposed the AIM model?

Answer 16

Meltzoff and Moore (1997)

Question 17

What are the 3 stages of facial imitation in infancy (Meltzoff and Moore, 1997)?

Answer 17

1. Perceptual system
2. Supramodal representational system
3. Action system

Question 18

In the AIM model, what does the Perceptual System do?

Answer 18

It provides a perception of the infant’s own body and their external world

Question 19

In the AIM model, what does the Supramodal Representational System do?

Answer 19

It compares what the infant sees (external target) with what they are doing themselves (their body position)

If they match → successful imitation
If there is a mismatch → the Action System comes into play

Question 20

In the AIM model, what does the Action System do?

Answer 20

When there is a mismatch (between the external target and the child’s body position), the child’s body must perform an act (body babbling, movement) –> their body state changes

Question 21

What research disproves the AIM model?

Answer 21

Anisfeld (1991) - infants only imitated tongue protrusion

Jones (2006) - tongue protrusion isn’t driven by the matching mechanism; newborns protruded their tongue to anything interesting (flashing lights, opera music)

Question 22

Matching might be learnt.

What model did Heyes (2010) propose?

Answer 22

Associative Sequence Learning model

Question 23

What is the ASL model?

Answer 23

• an account of the info-processing mechanisms involved in imitation
• it explains how mirror neurons can match observed and executed actions

Question 24

What sort of representations are acquired during development? How?

Answer 24

Associations between sensory and motor representations are acquired as a result of correlated sensorimotor experience

Question 25

Activation of the motor representation is often paired with…

Answer 25

…the corresponding perceptual representation.

Question 26

What bidirectional link is formed over time? (ASL model) What happens as a result of this link?

Answer 26

A bidirectional link between activation of the motor representation and the corresponding perceptual representation is formed

Activation of one will excite the other

Question 27

What happens if this bidirectional link is strong? (ASL model)

Answer 27

Excitation of the motor representation will lead to activation of muscles involved in executing the represented movement, but may/may not lead to overt performance of the movement

Question 28

What are the 4 sources of learning?

Answer 28

1. Self-observation
2. Mirror self-observation
3. Caregiver’s imitate
4. Synchronous action

Question 29

Which study looks at self-observation (source of learning)?

Answer 29

White et al. (1964) - 2-3 month-olds spent most waking hours watching their own hands; the sensory feeling and motor representation of the same action was associated

Question 30

What study is associated with mirror self-observation (source of learning)?

Answer 30

Amsterdam (1972) – 85% of 6-12 month-olds responded to their own mirror image as a ‘playmate’ and interacted with it; the sensory account and motor account was associated

Question 31

What study is associated with caregiver’s imitate (source of learning)?

Answer 31

Uzgiris et al. (1986) – infants spent most waking hours interacting face-to-face with adults; imitated their CG and vice versa; the sensory account and motor account of the same action was associated

Question 32

What study is associated with synchronous action (source of learning)?

Answer 32

O’Tool and Dubin (1968) – during 55% of spoon-feeding sequences, both the infant and their CG opened their mouths
- there is no functional need for the CG to open their mouth but there may be a social need

Question 33

Lack of neonatal imitation does NOT provide support for which account?

Answer 33

Learning hypothesis - when something is absent it is difficult to prove that it doesn’t exist at all

Question 34

According to the associative account, can we alter mappings in adults?

Answer 34

YES - if mappings develop through experience, we should be able to modify them with different experiences

Question 35

According to the natural selection account, can we alter mappings in adults?

Answer 35

NO - experience-based alteration of innate systems would be maladaptive (hard to alter)

Question 36

Heyes et al. (2005) - ____ are performed faster than _______ (automatic imitation)

a) imitative hand responses
b) non-imitative hand responses

Answer 36

Heyes et al. (2005) – imitative hand responses are performed faster than non-imitative hand responses (automatic imitation)

Question 37

What did Heyes et al. (2005) do in their study of imitation and what did they find?

Answer 37

Control group vs. group that received non-matching training (they learnt to open their hand when they saw a closed hand and vice versa) – they associated the sensory input with the motor action

–> training altered the mappings between the sensory and motor representation

Question 38

What account is Heyes et al. (2005) (training) study consistent with?

Answer 38

Associative account - mappings develop through experience

Question 39

Which model is the Wealth of the Stimulus embodied in?

Answer 39

ASL model

Question 40

What does the Wealth of the Stimulus state?

Answer 40

• interaction with the environment drives our mechanisms for imitation
• the correspondence problem is solved by sensorimotor learning –> the experience necessary for this type of learning is provided by the environment

Question 41

What model is the Poverty of the Stimulus embodied in?

Answer 41

AIM model

Question 42

What does the Poverty of the Stimulus state?

Answer 42

• imitation requires the imitator to solve the correspondence problem (solved by an innate cognitive mechanism)
• imitation isn’t based on learning because infants don’t display imitation very early on
• there is insufficient info in the environment to account for infants’ behaviour

Question 43

Is it more likely that imitation evolves through natural selection or develops through associative learning?

Answer 43

Imitation more likely develops through associative learning

Question 44

What is action understanding?

Answer 44

Understanding others’ actions by combining perceptual info about the behaviour, knowledge about the context of the action and our own experiences

Question 45

What type of actions does our motor system represent - observed or executed?

Answer 45

Observed actions - they are represented before they happen and in their entirety (even if they are only partially presented)

Question 46

When are motor representations of observed actions activated?

Answer 46

When we want to imitate an action and we are watching an action being performed

Question 47

Why is it beneficial for AU to help us predict actions?

Answer 47

To help us experience and improve our own actions

Question 48

Which system is activated when monkeys observe actions?

Answer 48

Motor system

Question 49

Gallese et al. (1996) found that mirror neurons fire when monkeys observe and execute the same action. Which area of the brain do these mirror neurons fire in?

Answer 49

Ventral premotor cortex

Question 50

Observe another’s action –> motor commands for producing it ourselves –> intentions that drive the same action in us –> …

Answer 50

…this same intention drives the action in someone else

Question 51

Kilner et al. (2007) found that motor activations can anticipate how an action might unfold by predicting what someone will do.

True/false?

Answer 51

True

Motor activations can anticipate how an action might unfold by predicting what someone will do.

Question 52

When 9 month-olds saw an action, there was motor activity BEFORE/AFTER the action was observed (Southgate et al., 2009).

Answer 52

Before - 9 month-olds predicted what the actor was going to do

Question 53

Southgate et al. (2010) - 9 month-olds showed evidence of motor activations when they saw…

Answer 53

…part of a familiar grasping action

• they represented the unobserved part and could predict the outcome