Is the human mirror system operational at birth?
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1
University of Queensland, School of Psychology, Australia
i. Background
Whether or not mirror neurons exist in the human brain has been a hot topic of debate over the past two decades. Single cell recordings provide clear evidence that they exist in monkeys, but no such direct evidence exists for humans. As such, some researchers have relied on indirect lines of evidence, such as our capacity to imitate, to argue the case for a human mirror system. Evidence that human newborns imitate facial and hand gestures (Meltzoff, A.N., & Moore, M.K., 1977, Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates, Science 198, 75-78) has led to the suggestion that humans have an innate mirroring system that is operational from birth. We evaluate this proposal with reference to data from the first large-scale longitudinal study of human newborn imitation.
ii. Methods
We assessed imitation of a range of facial and manual gestures when infants were 1, 3 and 6 weeks of age. A female experimenter modeled the gestures to infants when they were in a quiet alert state. Infants’ responses were videotaped. Infants’ facial and hand gestures were later coded from the videotapes by trained coders who were blind to the model’s actions.
iii. Results
The data reveal that only a single gesture—tongue protrusion—was imitated during the first 6 weeks of life, and that 50% of the newborns tested, failed to imitate even this gesture.
iv. Discussion
These data cast serious doubt on the proposal that humans are born with a functional mirror neuron system.
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Australian Research Council (DP0985969).
Keywords:
mirror neuron system,
Imitation,
human neonates,
Longitudinal Studies,
tongue protrusion
Conference:
ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference, Clayton, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Nov - 1 Dec, 2013.
Presentation Type:
Oral
Topic:
Motor
Citation:
Slaughter
V,
Oostenbroek
J,
Suddendorf
T and
Nielsen
M
(2013). Is the human mirror system operational at birth?.
Conference Abstract:
ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.212.00043
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Received:
25 Oct 2013;
Published Online:
25 Nov 2013.
*
Correspondence:
Prof. Virginia Slaughter, University of Queensland, School of Psychology, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia, vps@psy.uq.edu.au