For decades, there have been studies suggesting that human babies are capable of imitating facial gestures, hand gestures, facial expressions, or vocal sounds right from their first weeks of life after birth. But, based on new evidence, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 5, 2016 now say that just isn't so. 
 
 After testing young infants repeatedly over their first couple of months, they found no evidence at all that very young infants are capable of imitation. 
 
 "Numerous studies from the 1980s and 90s indicated no imitation by newborns, while others claimed it was there," says Virginia Slaughter of the University of Queensland in Australia. "We wanted to clear up the confusion because the 'fact' that newborns imitate is widely cited, not just in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and pediatrics, but also in popular sources for parents." 
 
 If the youngest babies can't imitate, then how did so many studies suggest that they could? Slaughter says the main limitation of earlier work is that researchers presented infants with a limited number of gestures. For example, she says, in most studies, researchers only tested infants' responses to an adult poking out her tongue and opening her mouth. 
 
 To do that, they measured infants' levels of tongue protrusion and mouth opening before the adult did anything and then assessed changes in the infants' behaviors after the adult showed one of those two gestures. In many cases, the babies did poke their tongues out more after they saw an adult's tongue poking compared to mouth opening. However, the researchers didn't have adults make any additional gestures or expressions, to see whether infants were truly imitating the adult's behavior. 
 
 "If infants also increase their tongue protrusions when an adult models a happy face or finger pointing, then it's not a case of imitation, but probably excitement at seeing an adult do something interesting," Slaughter says. "We eliminated this problem by assessing infants' responses to a wide range of different models." 
 
 In the new study, Slaughter and her colleagues presented 106 infants with nine social and two non-social models and scored their responses at 1, 2, 6, and 9 weeks of age. The results were quite clear: the infants did not imitate any of the behaviors that they observed. In response to the grownups they saw, they were just as likely to produce a different gesture as they were to produce a matching one. 
 
 Slaughter says that this result is not what they'd anticipated. In fact, they set out initially with the goal to examine whether differences in imitation amongst young infants would predict later imitation and other aspects of social development. 
 
 The findings now suggest that imitation isn't an innate behavior, but one that is learned in babies' first months. In fact, babies might learn to imitate other people based on watching other people imitate them. 
 
 "Infants aren't born with the ability to copy what other people do, but they acquire that skill during the first months of life," Slaughter says. "One possibility is that being imitated plays a role in this acquisition. In another study from our lab, we found that parents imitate their babies once every two minutes on average; this is a powerful means by which infants can learn to link their gestures with those of another person." 
 
 The findings should come as encouraging news for anyone who has noticed that their newborns don't imitate them. That's perfectly normal, and they almost certainly will over time. 
 
 The researchers are now analyzing additional data from their longitudinal study, extending into the second year of life. They say they want to know when infants really do begin to imitate and what factors may contribute to the emergence of this skill. 
 
 ### 
 
 This research was supported by the Australian Research Council. 
 
 Current Biology, Oostenbroek et al: "Comprehensive Longitudinal Study Challenges the Existence of Neonatal Imitation in Humans" http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(16)30257-3 ||||| Do newborn babies imitate adults? New study says 'no', rekindling long-standing debate 
 
 Posted 
 
 Newborn babies do not imitate us — we imitate them — according to a new study that reignites a long-standing debate over whether or not babies are born with the ability to copy adults. 
 
 Key points Large, comprehensive study suggests babies are not born imitators and need to learn skill 
 
 Infants produced gestures independently of what the adult did 
 
 Some say study is a "game changer", others say it is flawed 
 
 Websites and books aimed at new mothers and even textbooks tell us that babies are born imitators, but a new study published today in Current Biology supports the idea that it is a skill they have to learn — likely by us imitating them, rather than the other way around. 
 
 "When we interact with babies ... we want to bring them into our world," said senior author Professor Virginia Slaughter, a developmental psychologist at the University of Queensland. 
 
 "We imitate them, and when we imitate them, this stimulates them to behave. 
 
 "We continue to imitate their behaviour and this sets up a reciprocal interaction that looks like imitation and that ultimately becomes imitation but is driven by the parents or the adult's behaviour rather than the baby copying what somebody does perfectly from birth." 
 
 Researchers have long been divided over whether newborn babies can imitate adults — and while some studies have showed newborns imitate adults, others have not. 
 
 "We set out to settle the controversy," said Professor Slaughter, who said her study was the largest and the most comprehensive study of its kind to date. 
 
 Infant response to adult gestures tested 
 
 Professor Slaughter and her colleagues tested infant responses to a wide range of adult gestures at one, three, six and nine weeks of age. 
 
 Adults presented 106 infants with 11 different gestures including tongue poking, mouth opening, finger pointing, and happy and sad facial expressions, as well as sounds like "mmm" and "eee". 
 
 The infants were exposed to each gesture for 60 seconds during which time the researchers recorded the infants' response. 
 
 To guard against the infant becoming confused by each gesture they ensured it was quiet, alert and engaged before a new gesture was presented to them. 
 
 "To our surprise we did not find any evidence that babies imitated any of the gestures at any of the time points," Professor Slaughter said. 
 
 The most common activity among newborns was tongue poking, which they found occurred in response to a number of gestures by the adult. 
 
 "Mouth opening, as well and happy and sad faces, all got the same amount of tongue poking response as did tongue poking itself," Professer Slaughter said. 
 
 She said there was no doubt older infants could imitate adults, but her findings suggested that babies learn this skill. 
 
 For those who think this takes some of the magic out of having a child, Professor Slaughter disagreed. 
 
 "I think it's magical and wonderful that from the time babies are born they are interested in other people, and they are ready to learn about how they relate to others around them — in part, by learning to imitate," she said. 
 
 Professor Slaughter said the findings should come as encouraging news to parents who find their newborns do not imitate them. 
 
 She said this was certainly the case when she told one mother of a newborn about the research findings. 
 
 "She let out this massive sigh of relief and said: 'Oh thank God, I've been trying and trying to get my newborn baby to imitate. She wouldn't do it and I thought there must be something wrong with her'," Professor Slaughter said. 
 
 A 'game changer' - or not? 
 
 Developmental psychologist Professor Cheryl Dissanayake, of La Trobe University, said the paper was going to have major impacts on theory, research and teaching in the area of child development and conditions like autism. 
 
 "This is a game changer. It's very exciting," she said. 
 
 "None of the studies to date have had this many children or this many gestures included within a strong experimental paradigm." 
 
 She said the study was also the first longitudinal study to look at imitation in newborns. 
 
 However not all psychologists are convinced. 
 
 This isn't a fair test ... In many ways, the authors appear to have set up the infants to fail. Dr Elizabeth A. Simpson, University of Miami. 
 
 "This paper is far from having solved the controversy of neonatal imitation," said Dr Elizabeth A Simpson, an assistant professor in the University of Miami. 
 
 Dr Simpson said the study had "significant methodological shortcomings". 
 
 She said some of the modelled actions are actually rare or absent in newborns. 
 
 "If an infant is unable to produce a given action, then of course she will be unable to imitate it. This isn't a fair test," Dr Simpson said. 
 
 The authors also failed to give infants sufficient time to respond, she said. 
 
 "In many ways, the authors appear to have set up the infants to fail," she said. 
 
 Topics: science-and-technology, parenting, psychology, child-health-and-behaviour, australia, united-states
– Contradicting parenting websites and books—and probably a bunch of overly proud new parents—researchers have concluded that infants in the first weeks of life actually don't imitate facial expressions or hand gestures. In fact, the study suggests that it's the adults who are imitating the babies, reports Australia's ABC. Over the past decades, some studies have suggested that infants imitate people, while others found no proof. "We wanted to clear up the confusion because the 'fact' that newborns imitate is widely cited ... in popular sources for parents," researcher Virginia Slaughter says in a press release. She says the problem with earlier studies is that they looked only at a few gestures, mostly just sticking out the tongue and opening the mouth. "If infants also increase their tongue protrusions when an adult models a happy face or finger pointing, then it's not a case of imitation, but probably excitement at seeing an adult do something interesting," Slaughter says. "We eliminated this problem by assessing infants' responses to a wide range of different models." The new study, published Thursday, tested 11 gestures on 106 infants between 1 and 9 weeks old. What researchers call the "most comprehensive longitudinal study" of imitation in infants found no, well, imitation in infants. On the other hand, researchers found that parents imitate their baby every two minutes or so. (Playing with babies helps them learn to pay attention.)