Showing papers by "Andrew N. Meltzoff published in 2013"

Taking versus confronting visual perspectives in preschool children.

Abstract: Recent evidence suggests that 3-year-olds can take other people’s visual perspectives not only when they perceive different things (Level 1) but even when they see the same thing differently (Level 2). One hypothesis is that 3-year-olds are good perspective takers but cannot confront different perspectives on the same object (Perner, Stummer, Sprung, & Doherty, 2002). In 2 studies using color filters, 3-year-olds were unable to judge in what color they and an adult saw the same picture. This was the case irrespective of whether children replied verbally (pilot study) or by pointing to color samples (main study). However, 3-year-olds readily took an adult’s perspective by determining which of 2 objects an adult referred to as being a certain color, independently from how the children saw the objects (main study). Taken together, these results suggest that preschoolers’ difficulty is not so much taking perspectives as it is directly confronting another’s view with their own—an ability that seems to be acquired between 4 and 5 years of age.

Infants' somatotopic neural responses to seeing human actions: I've got you under my skin.

Abstract: Human infants rapidly learn new skills and customs via imitation, but the neural linkages between action perception and production are not well understood. Neuroscience studies in adults suggest that a key component of imitation–identifying the corresponding body part used in the acts of self and other–has an organized neural signature. In adults, perceiving someone using a specific body part (e.g., hand vs. foot) is associated with activation of the corresponding area of the sensory and/or motor strip in the observer’s brain–a phenomenon called neural somatotopy. Here we examine whether preverbal infants also exhibit somatotopic neural responses during the observation of others’ actions. 14-month-old infants were randomly assigned to watch an adult reach towards and touch an object using either her hand or her foot. The scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded and event-related changes in the sensorimotor mu rhythm were analyzed. Mu rhythm desynchronization was greater over hand areas of sensorimotor cortex during observation of hand actions and was greater over the foot area for observation of foot actions. This provides the first evidence that infants’ observation of someone else using a particular body part activates the corresponding areas of sensorimotor cortex. We hypothesize that this somatotopic organization in the developing brain supports imitation and cultural learning. The findings connect developmental cognitive neuroscience, adult neuroscience, action representation, and behavioral imitation.

15‐month‐olds’ transfer of learning between touch screen and real‐world displays: language cues and cognitive loads

Abstract: Infants have difficulty transferring information between 2D and 3D sources. The current study extends Zack, Barr, Gerhardstein, Dickerson & Meltzoff's (2009) touch screen imitation task to examine whether the addition of specific language cues significantly facilitates 15-month-olds' transfer of learning between touch screens and real-world 3D objects. The addition of two kinds of linguistic cues (object label plus verb or nonsense name) did not elevate action imitation significantly above levels observed when such language cues were not used. Language cues hindered infants' performance in the 3D→2D direction of transfer, but only for the object label plus verb condition. The lack of a facilitative effect of language is discussed in terms of competing cognitive loads imposed by conjointly transferring information across dimensions and processing linguistic cues in an action imitation task at this age.

Measuring Beliefs in Centimeters: Private Knowledge Biases Preschoolers' and Adults' Representation of Others' Beliefs

Abstract: A novel task, using a continuous spatial layout, was created to investigate the degree to which (in centimeters) 3-year-old children's (N = 63), 5-year-old children's (N = 60), and adults' (N = 60) own privileged knowledge of the location of an object biased their representation of a protagonist's false belief about the object's location. At all ages, participants' knowledge of the object's actual location biased their search estimates, independent of the attentional or memory demands of the task. Children's degree of bias correlated with their performance on a classic change-of-location false belief task, controlling for age. This task is a novel tool for providing a quantitative measurement of the degree to which self-knowledge can bias estimates of others' beliefs.

Infant Brain Responses to Object Weight: Exploring Goal-Directed Actions and Self-Experience.

Abstract: Recent work has suggested the value of electroencephalographic (EEG) measures in the study of infants’ processing of human action. Studies in this area have investigated desynchronization of the sensorimotor mu rhythm during action execution and action observation in infancy. Untested but critical to theory is whether the mu rhythm shows a differential response to actions which share similar goals but have different motor requirements or sensory outcomes. By varying the invisible property of object weight, we controlled for the abstract goal (reach, grasp, and lift the object), while allowing other aspects of the action to vary. The mu response during 14-month-old infants’ own executed actions showed a differential hemispheric response between acting on heavier and lighter objects. EEG responses also showed sensitivity to “expected object weight” when infants simply observed an experimenter reach for objects that the infants’ prior experience indicated were heavier vs. lighter. Crucially, this neural reactivity was predictive—during the observation of the other reaching toward the object, before lifting occurred. This suggests that infants’ own self-experience with a particular object’s weight influences their processing of others’ actions on the object, with implications for developmental social-cognitive neuroscience.

Goals influence memory and imitation for dynamic human action in 36-month-old children

Abstract: Adults’ memory for action is organized according to a hierarchy of goals. Little previous research has examined whether goals also play a crucial role in young children’s memory for action, and particularly whether goal information is privileged over veridical sequential order information. The current experiment investigated 3-year-old children’s (N = 40) memory for naturally occurring interleaved action sequences: Sequences in which an actor switched back and forth between carrying out actions related to two distinct goals. Such sequences allowed a test of whether children’s action representations prioritize a goal interpretation over veridical sequential information. Children’s memory for the action events was assessed by deferred imitation, 5-min after the demonstration had ceased. Results indicated that children’s memory prioritizes goals over veridical sequential order ‐ even to the extent that the actual sequential order is distorted in memory. These findings deepen our understanding of action processing and memory with implications for social-cognitive development.

• the human infant as “homo imitans”

Abstract: A central goal of this book is to bring together essays on social learning and imitation in animals and man. This goal builds upon a long-standing question asked at least as far back as Aristotle. Aristotle (1941) was quite decisive in his evaluation of the comparative imitative capacities of man and animals: “Imitation is natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over the lower animals being this, that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learns at first by imitation” (p. 448b).

Imitation and the Developing Social Brain: Infants’ Somatotopic EEG Patterns for Acts of Self and Other

Abstract: A leading question in developmental social-cognitive neuroscience concerns the nature and function of neural links between action perception and production in early human development. Here we document a somatotopic pattern of activity of the sensorimotor EEG mu rhythm in 14-month-old infants. EEG was recorded during interactive trials in which infants activated a novel object using their own hands or feet (“execution” trials) and watched an experimenter use her hands or feet to achieve the same goal (“observation” trials). At central electrodes overlying sensorimotor hand areas (C3/C4), mu rhythm power was reduced (indicating greater cortical activation) during infants’ execution of hand acts compared to foot acts. For the central electrode overlying the sensorimotor foot area (Cz), mu power was reduced during the execution of foot versus hand acts. Strikingly similar somatotopic patterns were found in both the action execution and observation conditions. We hypothesize that these somatotopic patterns index an intercorporeal mapping of corresponding body parts between self and other. We further propose that infants’ ability to identify self-other equivalences at the level of body parts underlies infant imitation and is an ontogenetic building block for the feelings of intersubjectivity we experience when socially engaged with other people.

11 Developmental Perspectives on Action Science: Lessons from Infant Imitation and Cognitive Neuroscience

Abstract: ing Rules and Strategies from Others' Behaviors Another inference that adults make from seeing actions concerns the rules or strategies that govern the person's behavior. We might not imitate the precise details of another's actions but instead extract and adopt the rules they follow. One important activity used in everyday life and scientific endeavors involves the categorization of objects. People often embody categorization through a set of particular actions, sorting behavior, by which they separate objects into distinct piles according to their properties. Work by Williamson, Jaswal, and Meltzoff (2010) investigated whether 36-month-olds could learn different categorization strategies by watching the sorting behavior of another person. Children watched an adult sort objects. In one study, the adult sorted according to a visible property (color rather than shape). In a second study, she sorted by an invisible property (sounds made when shaken). In control groups, the experimenter presented a presorted array. Children who saw the adult sorting action sorted the objects (by color or sound) significantly more often than did the controls. This illustrates the power of imitation. Children can abstract from actions the underlying rules and strategies that generated them, and then can adopt those same rules to generate their own behavior. Based on these inferences, children begin to act like the others in their culture, for example, categorizing an array of objects along the same properties as done by an expert or acting in accord with the roles and cultural norms specified by society. Top-Down Control of Imitation Children do not imitate compulsively or blindly; imitation has its reasons. Recent laboratory work has unco:vered several top-down influences on imitation. 292 Andrew N. Meltzoff, Rebecca A. Williamson, and Peter J. Marshall Social Communication, Naive Pedagogy, and Emotions Older theories supposed that imitation was automatic, compulsory, and not subject to voluntary choice and control. Increasing evidence indicates, however, that even preverbal children regulate their imitation. In the simplest example, infants are more likely to imitate the actions of a model who engages them socially (Brugger, Lariviere, Mumme & Bushnell, 2007; Nielsen, 2006). Other studies suggest that the "mere belief" that a social agent caused an outcome yields an increase in infants' tendency to imitate it (Meltzoff, 2007b, experiment 3; see also Bonawitz et al., 2010; Meltzoff, Waismeyer & Gopnik, 2012; Thompson & Russell, 2004). Csibra and Gergely (2006; Gergely, 2011) have suggested that multiple cues, including eye contact and "motherese" intonational patterns, set up an expectation of a pedagogical exchange. Such social cues may draw attention to the relevant aspect of the adult's demonstratio~ and mark it as significant, thus changing the likelihood that it will be chosen for imitation (cf. Gergely, Bekkering & Kiraly, 2002; Paulus, Hunnius, Vissers & Bekkering, 2011; Zmyj, Daum, Prinz & Aschersleben, 2007). The emotional response that a person gives to an action also serves as a top-down controller of imitation. In one study, an adult performed a seemingly innocent act, and a second adult reacted with negative emotion (saying, "That is so irritating!") as if it were a "forbidden action." The experiment systematically manipulated whether the second adult was looking at the child when the child had a chance to imitate. Children did not imitate the forbidden action if the previously angry adult (now with a neutral face) was watching the child. If the previously angry adult left the room and could no longer visually monitor the child's action, the child would imitate (Repacholi & Meltzoff, 2007; Repacholi, Meltzoff & Olsen, 2008). This documents top-down regulation of imitation based on the expected emotional consequences of performing the action oneself. Self-Experience Another line of work shows that children regulate their imitation of actions depending on their own prior action experience. Williamson, Meltzoff, and Markman (2008) tested 36-month-old children to see if they were more likely to imitate an other person's actions if the child's own previous experience had revealed that the task was difficult. A surreptitious resistance device made a drawer difficult to open when the child first explored it. Then the adult demonstrated a distinctive technique for opening the drawer (pressing a button on the side of the box). Children were significantly more likely to imitate the adult's distinctive act if the child had a Developmental Perspectives on Action Science 293 prior difficult experience with the task. These results fit with educational philosophies asserting that self-experience confronting a problem can help the student be more open to instruction (see also Williamson & Meltzoff, 2011). Being Imitated: Social-Emotional Consequences Parent-child games are often reciprocal in nature, and mirroring games are a childhood favorite. What makes a child so engaged and joyful at seeing his or her own actions mirrored by an adult? Temporal contingencies are important, but so is the similarity of the form of the participants' actions. Research has investigated whether infants simply prefer people who are acting "just when they act" (temporal contingency) or whether they also prefer those who are acting "just like they act" (structuraI congruence). To test this idea, Meltzoff (2007a) had infants sit across a table from two adults. Both adults sat passively until the infant performed one of the target actions on a predetermined list. Then both experimenters began to act in unison, but one of the adults matched the infant, while the other performed a mismatching response. The results showed that the infants looked and smiled more at the matching adult. This shows that infants are sensitive to the matching form of the behavior. From a cognitive viewpoint, these findings are important because they show that the mechanisms underlying imitation are bidirectional. The machinery that takes visuaI input and generates a matching motor response can also run in reverse and recognize when the self's own actions are being mirrored. From a socia.1-emotional viewpoint, the findings are important because they show a social function of imitation. This research revealed that infants are visually engaged by, and have strong positive emotions toward, being imitated by someone else: infants smiled more at the imitator. Being imitated provides a nonverbal bond between the two actors, which may increase emotional attachment, prosocial feelings, and a sense of being understood. Adu.Its also have positive reactions to being imitated even when they are unaware of it (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999). A special "psychological jolt" is induced by seeing one's actions mirrored. Researchers have only just begun to perform the relevant neuroscience studies on being imitated by another person. Work in this area has been carried out with adults (Decety, Chaminade, Grezes & Meltzoff, 2002) and more recently with infants (Saby, Marshall & Meltzoff, 2012). In both cases, specific neural signatures were found for being imitated by another person. 294 Andrew N. Meltzoff, Rebecca A. Williamson, and Peter ). Marshall Cognitive Neuroscience and Action Science A comprehensive, contemporary action science requires an :11tegration of behavioral findings, cognitive theorizing, and neuroscience u~ ' '\. Much of the neuroscientific study of perception-action coordination ha. been driven by the concept of the mirror neuron system (MNS). This originates in the discovery, using single-cell recording techniques, of neurons in the ventral premotor cortex (FS) of macaque monkeys that respond not only when a monkey carries out a particular action on an object but also when the monkey observes the same action being carried out (di Pellegrino, Fadiga, Fogassi, Gallese & Rizzolatti, 1992; Rizzolatti, Fadiga, Gallese & Fogassi, 1996). Although a good deal of evidence exists for overlaps in patterns of regional brain activity between action perception and action production in human adults (Caspers, Zilles, Laird & Eickhoff, 2010; Hari & Kujala, 2009), researchers debate the function of this overlap and its relation to the macaque MNS. We do not aim to address these controversies here. Instead we focus on developmental issues, which have sometimes been overlooked. The corpus of behavioral work on infant imitation firmly establishes that young children link action perception and production. We can infer that some (as yet unspecified) neural circuitry supports such observation-execution coordination. A pressing question is how best to characterize the origins and development of these neural processes (Marshall & Meltzoff, 2011). EEG as a Tool in Action Science in Adults The developmental neuroscience work on action processing has mainly employed the electroencephalogram (EEG), with a focus on the sensorimotor mu rhythm. To understand this work, it is first useful to consider results from adult studies. In adults, the mu rhythm occurs in the alpha frequency range (8-13 Hz) and is typically recorded from central electrode sites overlying motor and somatosensory cortices. Early work showed a desynchronization (reduction in amplitude) of the mu rhythm during movement (Gastaut, Dongier & Courtois, 1954), with more recent work examining the specific time course of mu activity during voluntary actions (Pfurtscheller & Lopes da Silva, 1999). Building on recent magnetoencephalography (MEG) findings (Harl et al., 1998), studies with adults have further shown that the mu rhythm is also desynchronized during the observation of others' actions (e.g., Muthukumaraswamy & Johnson, 2004; Streltsova, Berchio, Gallese & Umilta, 2010). Taken together, these findings raise the Developmental Perspectives on Action Science 295 suggestion that the mu rhythm may be informative in the study of neural mirroring mechanisms

Self-concept implicit association test

Abstract: The methods and systems described herein enable the administration of Implicit Association Tests (lATs) without the use of "self-concept" or "self-report." An example method involves a computing system providing a visual indication of categories including (i) a user-associated-objects category (ii) a user-unassociated-objects category, (iii) a positivevalence-objects category, and (iv) a negative- valence-objects category. The categories are grouped into a first group and a second group. The computing system provides an indication of a stimulus. The stimulus may be associated with at least one of the categories. The computing system may then receive input data indicating a correct classification of the stimulus with one of the first group and the second group. Ultimately, the computing system determines an amount of time elapsed between providing the indication of the stimulus and receiving the input data indicating the correct classification of the stimulus with one of the first group and the second group.