Question

Rana is intrigued about the phenomenon of newborn imitation. After reading several scientific papers about whether or not newborns can imitate adults’ gestures, she finds the results are quite mixed: Some researchers report that newborns can imitate several gestures (e.g., facial gestures, hand gestures), some researchers report that newborns can only imitate one gesture (i.e., tongue protrusion), whereas others report no evidence of newborn imitation at all.

Rana’s sister is about to have a baby. Rana decides that she is going to conduct an experiment to find out once and for all if newborn infants can really imitate.

Rana’s niece, Lottie, is nearly 4 weeks old. Rana goes to her sister’s house to run the experiment. Lottie’s big brothers want to watch the experiment, so Rana tells them to sit beside her (but they are a bit fidgety and don’t sit still). Lottie is crying because she is due for a feed, but Rana decides to do the experiment anyway because she can’t stay long. She places Lottie in her bassinet, and kneels on the floor about one metre away with Lottie’s brothers. Rana starts her experiment by opening her mouth a few times to see if Lottie will imitate. Lottie is still crying, so Rana strokes the side of Lottie’s cheek to try and calm her. Lottie turns her head to face Rana and opens her mouth. Rana can’t believe it – Lottie is imitating her!

Rana calls in her sister to tell her what happened. Her sister enters the room and sits down beside Lottie in the bassinet. Rana decides to try another gesture. Lottie is still a bit upset, so Rana tries to calm her by smiling at her and wonders whether Lottie will imitate her. Rana begins modelling a smile to Lottie. As she does so, Lottie notices her mum beside her and turns towards her and produces a smile. Wow, thinks Rana! Lottie imitated my smile!

Rana is really pleased with how the experiment is going, and is beginning to believe that newborns really do imitate adults. She tries one more gesture just to be sure. Rana picks up a pen and places it in her palm and wraps her fingers around it. She models this a few times then places the pen in Lottie’s palm to see if she can imitate wrapping her fingers around it. Rana is so surprised to see that Lottie wraps her tiny fingers around the pen! Another successfully imitated gesture!

Rana concludes that Lottie’s imitative behaviour of these three gestures provides strong evidence that newborn infants are capable of imitation. Rana is going to submit her findings to a developmental psychology journal.

Question:

What are some of the issues with how Rana has conducted this experiment? How could she have designed and conducted this experiment in a better way? For each issue you identify, explain why it is an issue and how Rana could have improved the experiment.

Answer 1

Rana hasn't done enough research about naturally occuring reactions which are involuntary in nature called as relfexes in children.In here what Rana views as imitation are actually merely reflexes especially because the rooting reflex(touching of cheek)and sliding of mouth towards one side are when an infant is locating food.The plantar reflex that is holdimg of own is naturally present in infant.

Firstly,Rana could have condicted the experiment when extraneous variables such as the kids,feedimg time ,mood of the child wouldn't have clashed with the experiment.It could have been a naturlisitc observation so that minimum interference occurs