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No Compelling Evidence That Newborns Imitate Oral Gestures
Author(s) -
Anisfeld Moshe,
Turkewitz Gerald,
Rose Susan A.,
Rosenberg Faigi R.,
Sheiber Faith J.,
CouturierFagan Deborah A.,
Ger Joseph S.,
Sommer Iris
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
infancy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.361
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1532-7078
pISSN - 1525-0008
DOI - 10.1207/s15327078in0201_7
Subject(s) - gesture , imitation , psychology , tongue , communication , developmental psychology , audiology , linguistics , social psychology , medicine , philosophy
Newborns ( N = 83) were presented with 3 conditions, each for 160 sec: tongue protrusion (TP), mouth opening (MO), and control (CO). In TP and MO, a female model alternated between demonstrating the gesture for 20 sec and presenting a passive, motionless face for 20 sec. In CO, she presented a passive face in both the “demonstration” and “passive” intervals. The participants' eyes were more widely open in the demonstration intervals of TP and MO than in the passive intervals, indicating that they were attending to the gestures. In TP, the participants produced more TP responses than MO responses, but in MO there was no effect, undermining the neonatal imitation hypothesis.