The development of imitation in infancy
Year: 2009
Type: review
Abstract: An overview of existing data on imitation in infancy suggests that changes in the direction of imitation research are underway. The widely accepted view that newborn infants imitate lacks supporting evidence. Instead, existing data suggest that infants do not imitate others until their second year, and that imitation of different kinds of behaviour emerges at different ages. The evidence is consistent with a dynamic systems account in which the ability to imitate is not an inherited, specialized module, but is instead the emergent product of a system of social, cognitive and motor components, each with its own developmental history.
Author: Susan S. Jones
Institutions: Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana University
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2147347966