Innate Imitationation
The debate over whether or not infants are born with innate knowledge has been a long one. Nativist philosophers such as Kant (1781/1958) and Descartes (1638/1965) believed that certain abilities and understandings about the world were innate, whereas Empiricist William James (1890) believed, infants were a tabula rasa (blank slate) upon which information is "written". Even today the debate over whether or not infants are born with innate abilities has not been resolved, but by looking at research conducted into imitation with neonates Meltzoff and Moore (1977, 1983) and by considering possible functions of imitation is it possible to draw some conclusions. Similarly, it is not known whether or not infants recognise the human face innately
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Research involving blind (Freedman, 194, 1965) and blind and deaf neonates (Charlesworth & Kreutzer, 1973) suggest that fundamental emotions such as laughter, smiling and crying are not learnt from any of the more subtle forms of conditioning or shaping or through direct imitation, implying that these emotions are innate. Supporting the position taken by extreme universalists that biology plays a greater role than culture. All this evidence does seem to suggest the possibility of innate imitation in neonates, certainly it would makes biological and social sense. The theories in favour of innate ability to imitate are certainly more numerous and plausible than those against. However, there is no definitive proof to support the assertion that imitation in infants is …show more content…
The neonates used in his experiments were 3-5 days old, and it was found that babies do look at their mother 's for longer, but when their mother 's hairline is removed, the neonates appeared unable to discriminate between the two women, indicating the use of external features, such as hair-line and the outer contour of the head for identification by the neonates. The experiment showed that by the time babies are 4 days old they have learned something about their mothers features, and this knowledge is available independently from other information associated with their mother 's
Research involving blind (Freedman, 194, 1965) and blind and deaf neonates (Charlesworth & Kreutzer, 1973) suggest that fundamental emotions such as laughter, smiling and crying are not learnt from any of the more subtle forms of conditioning or shaping or through direct imitation, implying that these emotions are innate. Supporting the position taken by extreme universalists that biology plays a greater role than culture. All this evidence does seem to suggest the possibility of innate imitation in neonates, certainly it would makes biological and social sense. The theories in favour of innate ability to imitate are certainly more numerous and plausible than those against. However, there is no definitive proof to support the assertion that imitation in infants is …show more content…
The neonates used in his experiments were 3-5 days old, and it was found that babies do look at their mother 's for longer, but when their mother 's hairline is removed, the neonates appeared unable to discriminate between the two women, indicating the use of external features, such as hair-line and the outer contour of the head for identification by the neonates. The experiment showed that by the time babies are 4 days old they have learned something about their mothers features, and this knowledge is available independently from other information associated with their mother 's