No Compelling Evidence That Newborns Imitate Oral Gestures

Moshe Anisfeld*, Gerald Turkewitz, Susan A. Rose, Faigi R. Rosenberg, Faith J. Sheiber, Deborah A. Couturier-Fagan, Joseph S. Ger, Iris Sommer

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

50 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Newboms (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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)111-122
Number of pages12
JournalInfancy
Volume2
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2001

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