Meltzoff & Moore

Question 1

What did Piaget observe from his daughter?

Answer 1

• capacity for imitation develops gradually
• inter-modal matching: ability to recognize an object initially inspected with one modality via another modality
• concluded there’s little imitation in first 6-8 months, can imitate actions already in schemata, inability for inter-modal matching
• at 18-24 months there’s capacity for deferred imitation

Question 2

What did they emphasise?

Answer 2

• true imitation vs global arousal response
• controlling child-parent interaction (possible demand characteristics)
• experimenter bias

Question 3

How did they alter procedure to fit those emphasization?

Answer 3

• each infants response to a gesture is compared to response to another similar gesture and use same adult, distance and rate of movement
• parents told about aim of study at end of study
• infants responses videotaped and scored by blind observers

Question 4

Who were the participants of the first study?

Answer 4

• 6 infants (3 male, 3 female)

- 12-17 days old

Question 5

What was the procedure of the first study?

Answer 5

• experimenter presents infant with passive face (unreactive, lip closed, neutral for 90 seconds)
• infants shown 4 gestures in random order (lip protrusion, mouth opening, tongue protrusion, sequential finger movement) for 15 seconds each
• 20 second response period (stops and resumes passive face)

Question 6

What were the findings of the first study?

Answer 6

• undergraduate volunteers record response periods: 2 groups, 6 coders in each, and ranked frequency of gestures shown by infant
• gesture shown to infant was imitated most, imitation of other gestures contained

Question 7

What was the aim of the second study?

Answer 7

-to see whether it was the infant imitating or the experimenter imitating (making sure experimenter isn’t changing gesture)

Question 8

Who were the participants of the second study?

Answer 8

• 12 infants (6 male, 6 female)

- 16-21 days old

Question 9

What was the procedure of the second study?

Answer 9

• repeated measures with counterbalancing
• see mouth open first, then tongue, while other infant sees tongue then open mouth
• sucked on dummy and shown passive face, dummy removed with 150 minute baseline period, dummy inserted with experimenter showing gesture for 15 seconds, then dummy removed and 150 second response period with experimenter having passive face

Question 10

What were the findings of the second study?

Answer 10

• undergraduate assistant blindly recorded response periods and ranked frequency of gestures shown
• infants would replicate both gestures that the experimenter showed

Question 11

What conclusions were made?

Answer 11

• early accounts of imitation lead to underestimations of age
• inherent tendency for infants to replicate what they see
• infants imitate gestures from 12 days of age even in lack of outside influences

Question 12

What proposed reasons are there for how/why the imitation occurs?

Answer 12

• innate releasing mechanism: gestures are fixed-action patterns that’s released by sign stimulus (automatic reflex), but has been disproved as range were imitated and it wasn’t time-locked, fixed or stereotypic
• active intermodal mapping: imitation is intentional and goal-directed intermodal matching, can compare sensory information from unseen behaviour, construct match leading to imitation
• early learning from social interaction: mimicry to increase liking and prosocial tendencies, explains why they do it rather than why they develop capacity to imitate

Question 13

What scientific contributions are there?

Answer 13

• insight into development of imitation
• follow-up study of Meltzoff and Moore (1999) found developmental changes in imitation
• developmental changes
• implication in cognitive science: memory and it’s developments
• implications for early education and parenting: importance for role models
• implications for brain science: common coding of action and mirror neurons

Question 14

What is the debate on the mixed findings?

Answer 14

• Piaget found no convincing evidence for imitation until approximately 8 months
• Meltzoff and Moore (1977) suggested infants are born with innate ability for imitation
• Meltzoff and Moore (1994) found 6-week-old infants produced gesture

Question 15

What is the issue with the replicability of the study?

Answer 15

-mixed findings continue