The Wiley - Blackwell Handbook 01 Inlant Development

Humans are inherently social. We live in complex societies, navigate intricate social interactions, and rapidly learn from those around us. We have a special adaptation that supports this-the ability to learn from observing others. Instead of having to rely on trial and error learning (which can be dangerous) or on independent invention (which can be slow), we profit from others' examples, including their actions, goals, intended efforts, and mistakes. Humans carefully study what others are doing in their transactions with the physical and social world and learn by observing their behavior. Anyone who has visited a foreign culture or attended a dinner party with a formal place setting has felt the need for rapid learning. In such cases we turn to others and imitate what they do. This powerful form of social learning is rare in the animal kingdom. There is a wide consensus among developmental psychologists and primatologists that humans are the most imitative creatures on the planet, imitating more prolifically than other species, including our closest living evolutionary relative, the chimpanzee. In this chapter we will examine imitation from a developmental perspective, focusing particularly on preverbal imitation. We will show that imitation serves Ihree important functions in infancy: (a) social-communicative, (b) cognitive, and (c) as a foundation for understanding other minds. Imitation serves a social-communicative function, because copying the actions qf others facilitates social engagement. Imitation serves a cognitive function because copying acts on objects helps infants learn how to use tools and cognitive strategies that are used by experts in the culture. Imitation is foundational for children's understanding of other minds because .it provides opportunities for mapping the similarities and differences between self and other, what Meltzoff (2007a) calls the "Like-Me" aspect of imitation. A developmental pathway has been described for how infants progress from the 346 Meltzoffand Williamson recognition ofshared acts to an understanding ofshared minds (Melrzoff, 2007b), thereby jumpstarting "mentalizing" and "theory of mind." There is evidence that even the earliest forms of imitation are connected to infants' social-communicative development. In 1977, Meltzoff and Moore reported that 12-to 21-day-old infants imitate simple body acts. These infants responded to an adult's tongue protrusion by sticking out their own tongues and responded to an adult's mouth opening/ closing by duplicating that action themselves. Subsequent studies conducted in a hospital setting (Meltzoff & Moore, 1983, 1989) showed facial imitation in newborns as young as 42 minutes old. Imitation …