Third-Party Preferences for Imitators
in Preverbal Infants
Lindsey J. 鲍威尔
1
and Elizabeth S. 游戏
2
1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, 麻省理工学院
2心理学系, 哈佛大学
关键词: imitation, social cognition, infancy
开放访问
杂志
抽象的
Participants in social interactions often imitate one another, thereby enhancing their
affiliation. Here we probe the nature and early development of imitation-based affiliation
through studies of infants’ preferences for animated characters who imitate, or are imitated
经过, other characters. Four experiments provide evidence that preverbal infants preferentially
attend to and approach individuals who imitate others. This preferential engagement is
elicited by the elements of mimicry in simple acts of helping. It does not, 然而,
extend to the targets of imitation in these interactions. This set of findings suggests infants’
imitation-based preferences are not well explained by homophily, prestige, or familiarity.
We propose instead that infants perceive imitation as an indicator of valuable attributes
in a potential social partner, including the capacity and motivation for social attention
and coordinated action.
During social interaction humans mimic one another’s behavior. Such social imitation
it occurs among friends, 陌生人, and parents engaging with their infants
is ubiquitous:
(Chartrand & Lakin, 2013; Kokkinaki & Kugiumutzakis, 2000; LaFrance, 1979). It improves
the quality of social interactions, leading people to like their partners more and treat them
更好的 (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999; van Baaren, Holland, Kawakami, & van Knippenberg, 2004;
van Baaren, Holland, Steenaert, & van Knippenberg, 2003). Despite the importance of social
imitation for interpersonal interaction, 然而, its origins and nature are obscure.
Infants imitate both actions and sounds by the end of the first year (例如, Barr, Dowden,
& Hayne, 1996; 琼斯, 2007; Meltzoff, 1988), but their motives in performing these actions,
and their interpretation of imitative acts, are not clear. A few studies suggest that toddlers
in the second year appreciate the social value of imitation and respond positively to those
who imitate them (Agnetta & Rochat, 2004; Carpenter, Uebel, & Tomasello, 2013; Meltzoff,
1990), but little evidence suggests whether observed acts of imitation carry social meaning for
younger infants.
A recent series of experiments addressed this question by asking if 4- and 5-month-old
infants who observe imitative interactions as third parties expect the interaction partners to affil-
iate with one another (鲍威尔 & 游戏, 2018A). 第一的, infants observed animated events depict-
ing one character engaging in imitative and nonimitative interactions with two separate
social parties. 然后, across several experiments, a violation of expectancy looking time method
was used to test (1) if infants expected the targets of imitative and nonimitative responses to
approach partners who had imitated them, 和 (2) if infants expected responding characters
to approach targets they had or had not imitated. Looking times indicated that infants did ex-
pect responding characters to approach and affiliate with the social partners they had imitated,
引文: 鲍威尔, L. J。, & 游戏, 乙. S.
(2018).Third-Party Preferences for
Imitators in Preverbal Infants. Open
头脑: 认知方面的发现
科学, 2(2), 61–71. https://doi.org/
10.1162/opmi_a_00018
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00018
补充材料:
https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00018
已收到: 30 九月 2017
公认: 5 七月 2018
利益争夺: 作者
declare no competing interests.
通讯作者:
Lindsey J. 鲍威尔
ljpowell@mit.edu
版权: © 2018
麻省理工学院
在知识共享下发布
归因 4.0 国际的
(抄送 4.0) 执照
麻省理工学院出版社
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Preferences for Imitators in Preverbal Infants
鲍威尔, 游戏
though the strength of this expectation was graded, yielding reversals in looking preferences as
display complexity and participant age varied, and no looking preferences under conditions
of intermediate complexity.
相比之下, infants’ looking patterns provided no evidence of
expectations that target characters would approach those who imitated them over those who
没有.
These findings provide evidence that imitation carries social meaning for young infants,
but do not reveal what that meaning is. Do infants expect imitators to approach their targets
because they view them as similar to one another? Because they view the targets as more pres-
tigious? As more desirable? Or do infants expect others to approach the individuals that they
imitate because both imitation and approach are indicative of the imitator’s prosocial nature or
orientation toward the target? To approach these questions, here we ask if infants themselves
prefer individuals who imitate, or are imitated by, 其他的. For most of the infants we tested,
these experiments began when the above studies ended: after infants viewed two characters
interact imitatively or nonimitatively with a third character, and then either approach or be ap-
proached by that character (鲍威尔 & 游戏, 2018A, 实验 4). Following these displays,
we tested infants’ relative preference between the imitating and nonimitating characters. 和
these studies, we seek to better characterize the social value of imitation for infants.
Four hypotheses make largely nonoverlapping predictions regarding infants’ potential
preferences for imitators over nonimitators and for targets of imitation over nontargets,
following third-party observations of imitative interactions. According to the hypothesis of
homophily—a liking for similar others (Byrne & Griffitt, 1966; Fawcett & Markson, 2010;
Mahajan & Wynn, 2012; Neimeyer & 米切尔, 1988)—participants in social interactions in-
terpret imitators’ reproduction of their actions as evidence of similarity to themselves (Haun
& 超过, 2015; Lakin, Jefferis, Cheng, & Chartrand, 2003). This hypothesis predicts that third-
party observation of imitation will not affect the observer’s social preferences: observations of
imitation should only increase infants’ perception of the imitator’s similarity to its target, 不是
to the infant.
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A second hypothesis is based on the finding that familiarity engenders preferences at all
年龄 (库克, 2007; Peery & Peery, 1986; Zajonc, 1968), including infancy (例如, bar-Haim,
Ziv, Lamy, & Hodes, 2006; Kinzler, Dupoux, & 游戏, 2007; Mehr, 歌曲, & 游戏, 2016).
In the context of imitative and nonimitative interactions, infants could develop a preference
for both the imitator and the target on the basis of greater accumulated familiarity with the
imitated behavior, which would be performed more frequently.
第三, infants may view imitation primarily as an indicator of the prestige, or social value,
of the target of imitation. Thus they may prefer such targets to those who are not targeted by acts
of imitation, as do older children and adults (Chudek, Heller, Birch, & Henrich, 2012; Henrich
& Gil-White, 2001; 超过 & Carpenter, 2015), while showing no preference for imitators over
nonimitators.
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最后, infants’ preferences may be elicited by the distinguishing characteristic of imi-
站: alignment with the behavior of others. Such alignment may provide evidence of the
imitator’s prosocial capacities and motivation toward social engagement, while providing no
evidence regarding the prosocial capacities or motivation of the target. 因此, infants who ob-
serve imitative interactions may prefer imitators to nonimitators, but not targets to nontargets.
实验 1 和 2 begin testing these predictions by assessing 4.5-month-old infants’
preferential looking to two characters who each respond to a third character’s action, 一
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Preferences for Imitators in Preverbal Infants
鲍威尔, 游戏
by imitating the action and the other by performing a contrasting action. 实验 3 测试
infants’ relative preference between two characters who act in turn, one receiving an imitative
response from a third character and the other receiving a contrasting response. 最后, Ex-
periment 4 builds on positive evidence of preferential attention to imitators over nonimitators
from Experiments 1 和 2 by testing whether 12.5-month-old infants preferentially reach for
characters who imitate their social partners. In all experiments, interactions between charac-
ters were presented using animated displays run by display-blind experimenters, allowing us
to assess infants’ preferences using consistent events and unbiased experimenters.
EXPERIMENT 1
方法
We recruited 48 4- to 5.5-month-old infant participants from the greater Boston area. Forty of
these infants were tested in conjunction with participation in Experiment 4 of Powell & 游戏
(2018A), which evaluated infants’ expectation of approach between imitators and targets. 这
main analyses of the current experiment did not involve the approach events, but rather tested
infants’ relative preference for imitating and nonimitating characters during a subsequently
conducted preferential looking test. (Looking times to approach events were examined only
to rule out potential influence on preferential looking; see the Supplemental Materials [鲍威尔
& 游戏, 2018乙].) As a result of this difference in analytical focus, the two experiments had
small differences in inclusion criteria. The eight nonoverlapping infants in the current sample
were either recruited to replace participants from the previous experiment who did not meet the
inclusion criterion for this experiment of looking to each character during the preference test for
a minimum of 1 s or retained for this experiment but replaced in the approach experiment due
to inattentiveness during approach events. These infants completed the same full procedure as
这 40 infants that overlapped with Powell and Spelke (2018A). For details on these two sets
of subjects, as well as subject demographics, inclusion criteria, and informed consent, 看到
补充材料 (鲍威尔 & 游戏, 2018乙).
The experiment consisted of three phases. In the first phase, infants viewed three ani-
mated characters engaging in pairwise interactions. Each interaction began with the central
特点 (the target) jumping three times, making the same sound at the start of each jump.
Then one of the side characters responded by jumping and making either the same or a different
声音. Across eight events, the two side characters responded in alternation, one producing
the same sound as the target (the imitator) and one producing a different sound (the nonimitator;
图1a; Movie S1 [鲍威尔 & 游戏, 2018乙]).
In the next phase, infants saw approach events in which one character moved toward
其他, and then the two characters moved synchronously around a circular path (Figure 1b;
Movie S1 [鲍威尔 & 游戏, 2018乙]). After completing this path, the characters remained
motionless on the screen while a display-blind coder tracked looking to the display. This infant-
controlled pause ended after 60 s of cumulative looking or 2 s of consecutive looking away.
Half of the participants saw responder approach events, in which the imitator and nonimitator
alternately approached the target, and half saw target approach events, in which the target
alternately approached the imitator and nonimitator (see the Supplemental Materials [鲍威尔
& 游戏, 2018乙] and Powell & 游戏, 2018A, for use of these events to test infants’ inferences
of affiliation between imitators and targets).
最后, we tested infants’ relative preference for the imitator and nonimitator. A display-
blind experimenter held a pair of disc-shaped objects with the same appearance as the imitator
开放的心态: 认知科学的发现
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Preferences for Imitators in Preverbal Infants
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数字 1.
Illustrations of events from Experiments 1 和 2.
and nonimitator (Figure 2c) ∼40 cm apart, centered in front of the infant but beyond reach-
ing distance, 为了 20 s. Offline, condition-blind coders determined how much time infants
spent looking at each character. We compared these looking times using a repeated-measures
ANOVA, including interaction order (imitation first or second), approach type (responder or
目标), imitator identity (正确的- or left-side character), and imitated sound (high or low) 作为
between-subjects factors. Looking times to imitative and nonimitative interaction events and
congruent and incongruent approaches were compared similarly. (For additional procedural
details and reliability coding, see the Supplemental Materials [鲍威尔 & 游戏, 2018乙].)
Results and Discussion
Infants spent more time looking at nonimitative (11.07 s) than imitative interactions [10.67 s;
F(1, 32) = 4.70, p < .05], though infants were highly attentive to all interactions (maximum
looking = 12 s). The small participant substitution did not change the finding from Powell and
Spelke (2018a) that infants in both approach conditions looked equally at the two approach
events (see the Supplemental Materials [Powell & Spelke, 2018b]).
Figure 2. Preferential looking results. (a) Looking times to the imitator and nonimitator (Experi-
ments 1 & 2), and (b) looking times to the target and nontarget of imitation (Experiment 3), divided
by the paired approach events (RA = Responder Approach; TA = Target Approach; NA = No Ap-
proach condition). Error bars represent standard error of the mean. (c) Physical characters presented
during preference test.
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Preferences for Imitators in Preverbal Infants
Powell, Spelke
In the critical, final preference test, infants looked longer to the imitator (M = 6.71 s)
than the nonimitator [M = 5.34 s, F(1, 32) = 4.31, p < .05]. Preferential looking also inter-
acted significantly with approach type [F(1, 32) = 6.37, p < .05]. Infants who saw responder
approach events subsequently looked longer at the imitator (7.73 s) than the nonimitator
[4.74 s; t(23) = 3.68, p < .005] during the preference test, while infants who saw target ap-
proach events showed no looking preference between the imitator (5.69 s) and the nonimitator
[5.94 s; t(23) = 0.28, p > .7; Figure 2a].
Although we did not predict that the approach events would influence infants’ prefer-
ential attention to the imitator and nonimitator, post hoc consideration suggests two potential
origins of this effect. 第一的, the responder approach events may be necessary to elicit an imitator
preference. Infants may, 例如, prefer to attend to characters whose social behavior is
consistent over time, 那是, who respond to a social partner by both imitating and approach-
ing him. 或者, the target approach events may have interfered with a preference for
Infants may prefer imitators over nonimita-
imitators, established in the interaction phase.
托尔斯, but that preference may be attenuated or erased if both are approached by the character
who initiated the interactions, thereby signaling that both responding characters are valued.
实验 2 distinguished these possibilities.
EXPERIMENT 2
实验 2 tested infants’ preference for imitators over nonimitators in the absence of any
approach events.
方法
We recruited 24 小说 4- to 5.5-month-old participants. The interaction events and preferential
looking test were identical to those of Experiment 1, except that each pair of interactions
was followed by an infant-controlled pause during which the characters remained motionless
onscreen (see the Supplemental Materials [鲍威尔 & 游戏, 2018乙]). No approach events
were presented.
Results and Discussion
During familiarization, infants looked equally at the imitative (10.68 s) and nonimitative in-
teractions [10.90 s; F(1, 16) = 0.96, p > .3]. 因此, the increased attention to nonimitative
interactions found in Experiment 1 was not replicated in this study. During the subsequent
preference test, infants spent significantly more time looking at the imitator (6.70 s) 比
nonimitator [4.40 s; F(1, 16) = 9.35, p < .01; Figure 2a; for comparison with Experiment 1, see
the Supplemental Materials (Powell & Spelke, 2018b)]. The approach events therefore were
not necessary to produce preferential attention to the imitator.
Instead, the target approach
events evidently weakened infants’ preference for the imitator, either by increasing the social
value of both responding characters or by drawing infants’ attention away from the responders
and toward the target.
EXPERIMENT 3
The preferential attention to imitators observed in Experiments 1 and 2 is consistent with the hy-
pothesis that infants prefer individuals who imitate their social partners, perhaps because such
alignment reflects the imitator’s prosocial capacities or motivations. However, alternative ex-
planations remain. Infants may have preferred the imitator because the sound it made occurred
OPEN MIND: Discoveries in Cognitive Science
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Preferences for Imitators in Preverbal Infants
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more frequently and therefore became more familiar than the sound made by the nonimitator.
Although homophily alone cannot explain infants’ preference, as the infants themselves did
not (and, indeed, cannot) produce the imitated sounds, perhaps infants prefer imitators and
targets with homophilous relationships to one another. Moreover, apart from any preference
for the imitator, infants may also perceive the targets of imitation as prestigious or socially val-
ued individuals. All of these hypotheses predict that if we reverse the roles of the characters in
the interactions from Experiments 1 and 2, such that the side characters are either imitated by
the central character or not, then infants will prefer the character who is the target of imitation
to the nontarget. Experiment 3 was undertaken to test this prediction.
Methods
Seventy-two 4- to 5.5-month-old infants participated. Forty infants were tested in conjunction
with their participation in Experiment 4 of Powell and Spelke (2018a; see the Supplemental
Materials [Powell & Spelke, 2018b] for details on this joint participation, and for a comparison
of looking times to approach events in the two overlapping samples). The interaction events
were identical to those of Experiments 1 and 2, except that the side characters now jumped
and vocalized first, and the central character responded to each of them, imitating one (the
target of imitation) and not the other (the nontarget; Figure 3a; Movie S2; see details in the
Supplemental Materials [Powell & Spelke, 2018b]). Twenty-four infants participated in each of
three conditions that paired these new interaction events with the same approach events used
in Experiments 1 and 2 (Figure 3b): events in which the center character alternately approached
the side characters (now responder approach events, given the reversed interaction roles),
events in which the side characters alternately approached the center character (now target
approach events), or no approach events at all. The preference test remained unchanged.
Results and Discussion
Infants looked equally to the imitative (M = 10.98 s) and nonimitative interactions [M =
10.76 s; F(1, 45) = 1.09, p > .3]. Looking times to the congruent and incongruent approach
events also did not differ from one another or from those of the overlapping sample of partic-
ipants in the Powell and Spelke (2018A) 实验 (see the Supplemental Materials [鲍威尔
& 游戏, 2018乙]).
数字 3.
Illustrations of scenes from Experiment 3.
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Preferences for Imitators in Preverbal Infants
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In the final preference test, infants showed no looking preference between the target
(米= 6.44 s) and nontarget of imitation [米= 6.03 s; F(1, 48) = 0.24, p > .6, Figure 2b].
There was no interaction between preferential looking and approach type (see the Supple-
mental Materials [鲍威尔 & 游戏, 2018乙] for other interaction effects). A repeated-measures
ANOVA comparing looking times during the preference test in the successful conditions of
实验 1 和 2 (responder approach and no approach) to the matched conditions from
实验 3 (target approach and no approach) revealed a significant interaction [F(1, 88) =
7.59, p < .01], indicating that infants’ preference to look at imitators over nonimitators was
reliably stronger than their preference to look at targets of imitation over nontargets (see the
Supplemental Materials [Powell & Spelke, 2018b]).
The results of Experiment 3 provide no evidence that young infants preferentially attend
to targets of imitation. This result speaks against a familiarity-based explanation of the imitator
preferences in Experiments 1 and 2, and it disconfirms the hypothesis that infants perceive
imitative interactions as more positive than nonimitative ones and thus prefer all participants
involved in imitative events. Finally, Experiment 3 provided no evidence that infants perceive
imitation as an indicator of the imitated target’s prestige, although prestige may influence
infants’ preferences in other contexts.
EXPERIMENT 4
Experiments 1 and 2 provide evidence that 4-month-old infants selectively attend to imitators
who repeat or align with a target character’s sound. Experiment 4 tests the generalization of
this preference to a new age, imitative behavior, and outcome measure.
In Experiments 1 and 2, imitators matched the sounds made by the target. Although im-
itation of vocalizations and of actions function similarly in adult social interactions (Chartrand
& Lakin, 2013; Giles & Powesland, 1975), it is possible that infants prefer imitators of sounds
but not movements. Experiment 4 tests infants’ relative preference for characters that do and
do not imitate the movements of a model character.
Experiments 1 and 2 used a behavioral measure, preferential looking, that can reflect a
variety of motivations. Preferential looking in early infancy sometimes precedes unambigu-
ously prosocial responses to the same social cues later in infancy (Hamlin, Wynn, Bloom, &
Mahajan, 2011; Kinzler et al., 2007), but it does not always do so (Kinzler & Spelke, 2011).
Moreover, looking can be driven by the perception of novelty or potential for information gain
(Kidd, Piantadosi, & Aslin, 2012; Kinney & Kagan, 1976), even in contexts with the potential
to elicit true social preferences (e.g., Quinn, Yahr, & Kuhn, 2002; Ramsey, Langlois, & Marti,
2005). Experiment 4 therefore probes infants’ preference for imitators further by using a differ-
ent measure of social preference: selective reaching. Reaching can be an exploratory behavior
(Ruff, 1978; Stahl & Feigenson, 2015), but when it is directed to social characters it primarily
reflects an infant’s motivation to approach them (e.g., Hamlin, Wynn, & Bloom, 2007).
Experiment 4 was conducted with 12-month-old infants, and it explores the relationship
between the imitator preference observed in Experiments 1 and 2 and another social pref-
erence attributed to infants: a preference for helpful individuals (e.g., Hamlin et al., 2007;
Hamlin & Wynn, 2011). In simple situations, a helpful actor’s behavior often mimics that of
her beneficiary. For example, one helps a child put away toys by engaging in the same action.
In research investigating infants’ evaluation of helpful individuals, nearly all of the depicted
scenarios have involved helpful behaviors that are imitative: a puppet goes up a hill, pushing
OPEN MIND: Discoveries in Cognitive Science
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Powell, Spelke
another puppet who has attempted the same climb, or tosses back a ball that another puppet
has tossed to him, or pulls upward on the lid of a box that another puppet also has attempted to
lift (e.g., Hamlin et al., 2007; Hamlin & Wynn, 2011; Kuhlmeier, Wynn, & Bloom, 2003). The
imitative nature of these acts of helping raise the possibility that infants’ preference for helpers
is driven by the helper’s imitation of the beneficiary, rather than by the helper’s impact on the
achievement of the beneficiary’s goals. Experiment 4 tests the feasibility of this interpretation
by asking if infants recognize the mimicry involved in a helping behavior and prefer those
who engage in this mimicry, even if the context is changed such that the behavior is not, in fact,
helpful to the beneficiary.
The experiment was modeled on a helping scenario featuring a protagonist who attempts
to climb a hill, as well as a helper who pushes the protagonist to the top and a hinderer who
pushes the protagonist toward the bottom (Hamlin et al., 2007). The current events differed in
one crucial respect: the actions of the former helper (now the imitator) and hinderer (now the
nonimitator) were arranged such that they did not impact the achievement of the protagonist’s
goal. The experiment concluded with the measure of preference most often used to assess
infants’ relative preference for helpers and hinderers: a preferential reaching test.
Methods
Sixteen 11.5- to 13.5-month-old infants saw six interaction events featuring three characters,
all initially positioned at the top of the screen above a hill (Figure 4a). In each event, the central
character moved from the bottom of the hill up to a middle platform and then engaged in two
In
failed attempts to climb the second slope (Hamlin et al., 2007; Kuhlmeier et al., 2003).
imitative interaction events, one of the two remaining characters landed in front of the central
character and copied its efforts to climb the hill, successfully reaching the upper platform
on the second attempt. In nonimitative events, the other character landed on the top of the
hill and then moved down the upper slope and back up twice, ending on the top platform
where it started (Movie S3). Each interaction event was followed by an infant-controlled pause.
Then a display-blind experimenter presented the infants with physical copies of the imitator
and nonimitator, testing which character infants would reach for first (see the Supplemental
Materials [Powell & Spelke, 2018b] for details).
Results and Discussion
During familiarization, looking times following imitation events (M = 10.19 s) did not dif-
fer from those following nonimitation events [M = 11.76 s; t(15) = 1.30, p > .2]. 婴儿
were significantly more likely to reach for the imitator than the nonimitator (13/16, binomial
Scenes and preferential reaching results, 实验 4.
数字 4.
(A) Imitative action by the
yellow character. (乙) Physical characters presented during the reaching test. (C) Number of infants
that reached first for the imitator and nonimitator.
开放的心态: 认知科学的发现
68
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Preferences for Imitators in Preverbal Infants
鲍威尔, 游戏
probability test: p < .05; Figure 4c). Low-level aspects of the characters’ motion are unlikely
to account for this result, because infants look and reach equally for agents who go uphill
versus downhill in the absence of a social partner (Hamlin et al., 2007), and both test charac-
ters moved toward and away from the central character to similar extents. These results thus
extend the preference for imitators observed in the first two experiments to a new age, a new
measure of preference, and a new target action that has received considerable attention in
studies of infants’ response to helpful and unhelpful agents. It is possible that infants have a
true preference for those who help others. When a helpful action involves imitating the bene-
ficiary’s attempted efforts, however, this matching can elicit an imitation-based preference
even in the absence of the helpful effect. Research investigating infants’ preference for helpers
therefore should present either nonimitative helping behaviors or should test infants’ preference
for characters who imitate with helpful versus neutral consequences.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The present experiments provide four main findings. First, 4.5-month-old infants preferentially
attend to parties who imitate the sounds made by their interaction partner over parties that
respond nonimitatively (Experiments 1 and 2). Second, when the same imitative and non-
imitative responses are directed toward two different targets, infants fail to show any preference
to attend to the imitated target (Experiment 3). Third, infants’ third-party preference for imitators
generalizes across age groups (∼4.5 and 12.5 months), imitation modality (sound and motion),
and behavioral measures (preferential looking and reaching). Finally, at least some helpful
behaviors involve imitative components that can elicit a preferential approach from infants in
the absence of any helpful impact.
The current findings align with prior research, supporting a cohesive picture of young
infants’ responses to social imitation. The prior research suggested that imitative interactions
carry social meaning for young infants, insofar as they support expectations of imitators’ fu-
ture affiliative behavior (Powell & Spelke, 2018a). The present finding that infants’ themselves
prefer imitators suggests that young infants perceive imitation as a prosocial action that both
indicates the imitator’s affiliative motivations toward its target and warrants positive evaluation
of the imitator. Future research can further test this hypothesis by characterizing the parame-
ters that affect infants’ preferences. Comparing responses to imitators, nonimitators, and non-
responding individuals can determine whether infants prefer imitators, disprefer nonimitators,
or both. Research varying the characters’ animacy or access to one another can test if infants’
preference is rooted in a perception of the imitator and target as interaction partners. (For pre-
liminary evidence that infants’ preference depends on the imitator’s perceptual access to the
target’s behavior, and for further evidence that infants preferentially approach imitators in a
larger sample of participants, tested with the reaching method used here, see Powell & Spelke,
2017.)
What could account for the perception of imitators as prosocial? As detailed above,
neither homophily nor familiarity preferences can explain the current findings. We suggest
instead that a preference for imitators helps infants (and older children and adults) iden-
tify individuals with the capacity and motivation for social engagement.
Interacting with or
helping a social partner requires abilities and propensities for social perception and attention
and for socially coordinated action. Because imitation demonstrates these building blocks of
prosocial behavior, infants’ preference for imitators may therefore foster engagement with
prosocial individuals, even before infants achieve the action representations and goal attri-
butions required for understanding acts of helping and cooperation.
OPEN MIND: Discoveries in Cognitive Science
69
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Preferences for Imitators in Preverbal Infants
Powell, Spelke
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Ellyn Schmidt, Heather Kosakowski, Margaret Barrow, Tess Davison, Sydney Jenkins,
Natasha Kalra, and Natalie Saragossa-Harris for assistance with data collection and reliabil-
ity coding, and to Susan Carey, Rebecca Saxe, Jesse Snedeker, Josh Tenenbaum, and Tomer
Ullman for criticisms and suggestions.
FUNDING INFORMATION
Elizabeth S. Spelke, National Institutes of Health (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000002),
Award ID: 5R01HD023103. Elizabeth S. Spelke, National Science Foundation (http://dx.doi.
org/10.13039/100000001), Award ID: CCF-1231216. Lindsey J. Powell, Simons Foundation
(http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000893).
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
Lindsey J. Powell: Conceptualization: Equal; Data curation: Lead; Formal analysis: Lead;
Funding acquisition: Supporting; Investigation: Lead; Methodology: Lead; Project adminis-
tration: Lead; Writing—original draft: Lead; Writing—review & editing: Equal. Elizabeth S.
Spelke: Conceptualization: Equal; Funding acquisition: Lead; Writing—review and editing:
Equal.
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