Horne, P.J. & Erjavec, M. (2007).
Do infants show generalized imitation of gestures?
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 87, 63-87.
Two experiments were conducted to investigate generalized imitation of manual gestures in 1- to 2-year-old
infants. In Experiment 1, 6 infants were first trained four baseline matching relations (e.g., when instructed
“Do this,” to raise their arms after they saw the experimenter do so). Next, four novel
gestures that the infants
did not match in probe trials were selected as target behaviors during generalized imitation Test 1; models of
these gestures were presented on unreinforced matching trials interspersed with intermittently reinforced baseline
matching trials. None of the infants matched the target behaviors. To ensure that these behaviors were in the
infants’ motor skills repertoires, the infants were next trained to produce them, at least once, under stimulus
control that did not include an antecedent model of the target behavior. In repeat generalized imitation trials
(Test 2), the infants again failed to match the target behaviors. Five infants (3 from Experiment 1) participated
in Experiment 2, which was identical to Experiment 1 except that, following generalized imitation Test 1, the
motor-skills training was implemented to a higher criterion (21 responses per target behavior), and in a
multiple-baseline, across-target-behaviors procedure. In the final generalized imitation test, 1 infant matched
one, and another infant matched two target behaviors; the remaining 17 target behaviors still were not matched.
The results did not provide convincing evidence of generalized imitation, even though baseline matching was well
maintained and the target behaviors were in the infants’ motor skills repertoires, raising the question of what
are the conditions that reliably give rise to generalized imitation.
Key words: generalized imitation, trained matching, higher-order class, manual gestures, motor skills training,
multiple baseline across behaviors, infants