Swedish researchers have found that infants are able to understand that they are being imitated. When an adult does, babies tend to be more friendly with them.
Babies are far from susceptible! They would even be happy to be imitated. A research team from the University of Lund (Sweden) made the observation during an experiment conducted with six-month-old infants. In the review PLOS, they find that children succeed in understanding when someone imitates them. This behavior creates friendly attitudes in them: they tend to smile longer.
Different types of imitation
“Imitating young children seems to be an effective way to get their attention and bond with them.explains the lead author of the research, Gabriela-Alina Sauciuc. The mothers were quite surprised to see their children happily engaging in pretend play with a stranger, but they were also impressed by their behavior.” The researcher met 16 babies around six months old at home, in the presence of their mother.
She used 4 different techniques to carry out her experiment: a pure imitation of what the child was doing, like a mirror, an imitation only of the gestures while keeping a neutral facial expression, or the scientist performing gestures unrelated to the actions of the baby. In the last case, Gabriela-Alina Sauciuc acted as parents do when their child does or asks for something.
An intriguing phenomenon for scientists
She found that babies looked at her and smiled more when she imitated their behavior. They also tended to test her: if the infant hit the table and the researcher did the same thing, he then hit several times while observing the scientist’s response. Even when the imitation involved gestures only, with no emotion displayed on the face, the babies seemed aware that they were being imitated and responded by testing the Swedish researcher. “When someone tests the person who is impersonating them, it is generally seen as a sign that the person is aware that there is a correspondence between their own behavior and that of the other”she explains.
She is now trying to understand what are the consequences of imitation for babies. This phenomenon has aroused the curiosity of scientists for a long time, many of them assume that this phenomenon would allow them to learn about cultural norms and human interactions, but this hypothesis has never been validated. “By proving that 6-month-old babies understand that they are being imitated and that this has a positive effect on interactions, we are starting to fill these gaps”concludes Gabriela-Alina Sauciuc.
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