NEONATAL IMITATION

The historical-theoretical background of the question whether neonates can imitate facial gestures is sketched, and 26 recent experiments are examined. The examination of the evidence indicates that the modeling of Tongue Protrusion increases the rate of tongue protrusion responses in neonates. For other individual gestures, there is not enough research to draw clear conclusions. (a) In 12 out of 23 experiments the rates of tongue protrusion were significantly higher in conditions in which Tongue Protrusion was modeled than in control conditions. In all 11 experiments in which no effect was obtained the total demonstration durations were 40 sec or less. By comparison, no single experiment that had a total demonstration duration of 60 sec or more failed to obtain an effect. (b) The rate of tongue protrusion averaged across experiments was significantly higher in the Tongue Protrusion condition than in control conditions. (c) Results interpreted as due to neonatal imitation of facial emotional expressions could reflect observers' inferences from the infants' eye movements. On the theoretical level, it is argued that the Tongue Protrusion effect need not be interpreted as imitation. It could be due to an increase in the tongue protrusion gesture in the response period following its (assumed) inhibition in the modeling period by orienting-attentional responses. © 1991.