Rethinking ‘Rational Imitation’ in 14-Month-Old Infants: A Perceptual Distraction Approach

In their widely noticed study, Gergely, Bekkering, and Király (2002) showed that 14-month-old infants imitated an unusual action only if the model freely chose to perform this action and not if the choice of the action could be ascribed to external constraints. They attributed this kind of selective imitation to the infants' capacity of understanding the principle of rational action. In the current paper, we present evidence that a simpler approach of perceptual distraction may be more appropriate to explain their results. When we manipulated the saliency of context stimuli in the two original conditions, the results were exactly opposite to what rational imitation predicts. Based on these findings, we reject the claim that the notion of rational action plays a key role in selective imitation in 14-month-olds

On the spatial interaction of visual working memory and attention: Evidence for a global effect from memory-guided saccades

Herwig A, Beisert M, Schneider WX. On the spatial interaction of visual working memory and attention: Evidence for a global effect from memory-guided saccades. Journal of Vision. 2010;10(5):1-10.Recent work indicates that covert visual attention and eye movements on the one hand, and covert visual attention and visual working memory on the other hand are closely interrelated. Two experiments address the question whether all three processes draw on the same spatial representations. Participants had to memorize a target location for a subsequent memory-guided saccade. During the memory interval, task-irrelevant distractors were briefly flashed on some trials either near or remote to the memory target. Results showed that the previously flashed distractors attract the saccade's landing position. However, attraction was only found, if the distractor was presented within a sector of +/- 20 degrees around the target axis, but not if the distractor was presented outside this sector. This effect strongly resembles the global effect in which saccades are directed to intermediate locations between a target and a simultaneously presented neighboring distractor stimulus. It is argued that covert visual attention, eye movements, and visual working memory recruit the same spatial mechanisms that can probably be ascribed to attentional priority maps

Action science emerging: Introduction and leitmotifs

Herwig A, Beisert M, Prinz W. Action science emerging: Introduction and leitmotifs. In: Prinz W, Beisert M, Herwig A, eds. Action science: Foundations of an emerging discipline. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2013: 1-33

Compatibility Effects in Young Children's Tool Use: Learning and Transfer

An inherent component of tool-use actions is the transformation of the user's operating movement into the desired effect. In this study, the relevance of this transformation for young children's learning of tool-use actions was investigated. Sixty-four children at the age of 27-30 months learned to use levers which either simply extended (compatible transformation) or reversed (incompatible transformation) their operating movements. Data revealed a compatibility effect as well as transfer effects originating from the two different types of transformations. Furthermore, results suggest that young children's tool-use learning is not a uniform process, but has to be regarded individually depending on the type of transformation

Action science: Foundations of an emerging discipline

Prinz W, Beisert M, Herwig A, eds. Action science: Foundations of an emerging discipline. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2013

Turning the tide: A plea for cognitively lean interpretations of infant behaviour

Keven & Akins (K&A) revisit the controversial subject of neonatal imitation through analysing the physiological foundations of neonatal spontaneous behaviour. Consequently, they regard imitative capacities in neonates as unlikely. We welcome this approach as an overdue encouragement to refuse cognitively rich interpretations as far as cognitively lean interpretations are conceivable, and apply this rationale to other phenomena in early childhood development

Experimental setup.

<p>The model before performing the head touch action in the hands-occupied and hands-occupied familiarization condition (A), the hands-free condition (B), and the hands-free distraction condition (C).</p

Results.

<p>Percentage of infants performing a head touch in each of the four experimental conditions. The original conditions are represented by the first (hands-free) and the third (hands-occupied) column.</p