Infants show stability of goal-directed imitation

Sakkalou, E., Ellis-Davies, K., Fowler, N., Hilbrink, E., & Gattis, M. (2013). Infants show stability of goal-directed imitation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 114, 1-9. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2012.09.005.
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.
Publication type
Journal article
Publication date
2013

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