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Interacting Socially With Human Hands at 24 Months of Age
Author(s) -
Slaughter Virginia,
Nielsen Mark,
Enchelmaier Petrina
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
infancy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.361
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1532-7078
pISSN - 1525-0008
DOI - 10.1080/15250000701795721
Subject(s) - imitation , psychology , test (biology) , rest (music) , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , social psychology , medicine , paleontology , cardiology , biology
This experiment explored whether or not 2‐year‐olds would engage in synchronic imitation with human hands. Sixty‐four 24‐month‐old infants participated. In a test of synchronic imitation, infants were given a toy while a model simultaneously performed novel actions on an identical toy. Infants were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 model conditions: a familiar person, an unfamiliar person, disembodied human hands, and disembodied robotic pincers. Infants were as likely to synchronically imitate disembodied hands as a person. Imitation of the pincers was significantly lower. This pattern suggests that 2‐year‐olds will engage socially with human hands in the absence of the rest of the body.