Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 17, 2026

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
Published on: April 28, 2016
Infants show stability of goal-directed imitation
Elena Sakkalou1, Kate Ellis-Davies, Nia C Fowler
1School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AT, UK.
Abstract:
Previous studies have reported that infants selectively reproduce observed actions and have argued that this selectivity reflects understanding of intentions and goals, or goal-directed imitation. We reasoned that if selective imitation of goal-directed actions reflects understanding of intentions, infants should demonstrate stability across perceptually and causally dissimilar imitation tasks. To this end, we employed a longitudinal within-participants design to compare the performance of 37 infants on two imitation tasks, with one administered at 13 months and one administered at 14 months. Infants who selectively imitated goal-directed actions in an object-cued task at 13 months also selectively imitated goal-directed actions in a vocal-cued task at 14 months. We conclude that goal-directed imitation reflects a general ability to interpret behavior in terms of mental states.
More Related Videos
11:14A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants
Published on: October 4, 2015
07:31Defining the Role Of Language in Infants' Object Categorization with Eye-tracking Paradigms
Published on: February 8, 2019
Related Concept Videos
Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development
Exploration...
Imprinting
Observational Learning
Language Development
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
The Nativist Approach
Nonconscious Mimicry