I See What You Do, and I like it too!
Day 11 Prompt: Cognitive Science Inspired Sciku
A smile or a nod
When you imitate me
I like you even more
We are social beings, and no doubt, flattery goes a long way — but you knew that! It has long been believed that human learning depends in large part on our ability to imitate and that young children learn by imitating adult caregivers.
Well — it turns out that babies also really like being imitated by the adults as well!
According to a new study from Lund University in Sweden, infants as young as six months old recognize when adults imitate them and perceive imitators as more friendly. The babies looked and smiled longer at an adult who imitated them instead of when they responded in other ways.
“Imitating young infants seems to be an effective way to catch their interest and bond with them. The mothers were quite surprised to see their infants joyfully engaging in imitation games with a stranger, but also impressed by the infants’ behaviours,” says Gabriela-Alina Sauciuc, researcher at Lund University and main author of the study ( source : Sauciuc et al., 2020)
The ongoing research will provide empirical evidence for the theory that it is through frequent exposure to being imitated, babies learn that shared actions are accompanied by shared feelings and intentions and about shared norms and routines.
Caregivers intuitively already know this. We often engage in a game of imitation around a baby — now we know that babies really like it too and may even benefit from it.
Actually, coming to think of it, many of us might still love to be imitated — Grown-ups, after all, are all ex-children— Here’s to playing and enjoying each other’s company — Thank you for reading!
*This is Day 11 of the #sciku challenge — science-inspired haiku-like poetry( so #sciku?) prompts to get you inspired — Our dear readers — why not spend some time each day creating and having a little fun — if you do — publish it anywhere on medium, just tag it with — #30DaysOfScikuChallenge.
**If Haikus/SciKus are not your thing, feel free to exercise your artistic creativity and write another form of a science-inspired story — I can’t wait to read what you come up with.
Tagging Laura Griffith Machado, PsyD Lynn E. O’Connor, Ph.D. Camille Allard Pradeep Srivastav, and anyone else who feels inspired to follow and/or play along with this fun #30DaysOfScikuChallenge and today’s prompt: Cognitive Science
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