RE: SOCIAL & COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: Imitative Learning in Infants

Children begin learning before they have language. Humans are ‘born learning.’ Andrew Meltzoff did one of the key studies showing that kids are ‘born learning.’ His study revolutionized our understanding of social and cognitive development. It showed that newborn infants are born connected to other people and can learn from others starting from birth.

(1) Newborns. Below is a famous figure from the paper published in SCIENCE.

From: A. Meltzoff & K. Moore, Science, 1977.

(2) Learning and memory. Meltzoff also discovered that infants could remember what people showed and imitate after a delay. 14-month-old infants saw how to do a novel act. Then, the children went home for 1-week. After they returned, infants imitated what they had seen 7 days earlier. This ‘deferred imitation’ is important for learning and remembering skills needed in the culture. The study showed that young babies have long-term memory before they can talk.

From: A. Meltzoff, Journal of Communicative Disorders, 1999.

(3) Learning from peers. Meltzoff also discovered that infants in day-care centers could learn from their peers. (A) An ‘expert baby’ shows a ‘naïve baby’ what to do with a toy. (B) The observing baby learns what to do by watching his age-mate. These 14-month-old babies are learning and teaching by interacting with each other. Collaborative learning starts early.

From: Hanna, E., & Meltzoff, A. N. (1993). Peer imitation by toddlers in laboratory, home, and day-care contexts: Implications for social learning and memory. Developmental Psychology, 29, 701-710.

(4) Learning from other people’s intentions. People do not always act perfectly in front of infants. People make mistakes or can’t reach their goals. Meltzoff showed that infants imitated what the person ‘tries to do.’ Even if that adults’ hand slips off the end of a toy, the child will imitate what the adult’s goal was, not the mistake the adult made. Also, infants infer goals from the actions of people, but not from machines (bottom panel below). They already know that people, but not inanimate objects, have goals and intentions.

From: A. Meltzoff, Developmental Psychology, 1995