When the self emerges: is that me in the mirror? (거울을 바라보며 유아는 자신을 알 수 있을까?)

To this day the 'mirror test' remains the best experiment yet developed for examining the emergence of self-concept in infants.

Most people look out for number one, themselves, which makes it strange to think that there was ever a time when we had no concept of 'me'. A simple study dating from the early 70s suggests that before the age of around two years old we can't recognise ourselves in the mirror. Because of this study, and the many variations that have followed, some claim that it isn't until our second birthday that our self-concept emerges.

A smudge of rouge on the nose

In 1972 Beulah Amsterdam from the University of North Carolina published a study that has kicked-off decades of research on self-recognition (Amsterdam, 1972). The study's procedure was simple. Infants between the ages of 6 and 24 months were placed in front of a mirror after a spot of rouge had been surreptitiously put on their noses. Then their mothers pointed to the reflection in the mirror and asked the child: "Who's that?". Researchers than watched infants' behaviour.

After testing 88 infants Amsterdam could only obtain reliable data on 16 of them - infants will be infants and many didn't want to play. From these 16 infants Amsterdam found three categories of response:

1. 6-12 months: it's another baby! The child behaves as though the infant in the mirror is someone else - someone they'd like to be friendly with. They display approach behaviours such as smiling and making noises.
2. 13-24 months: withdrawal. The infants no longer seem particularly happy at catching their own image in the mirror. Some look a little wary while others will smile occasionally and make some noises. One interpretation of this behaviour is that the infants are acting self-consciously here (perhaps demonstrating self-concept), but it could also be a reaction to another child.
3. 20-24 months onwards: it's me! From around this age infants start to clearly recognise themselves by pointing to the spot of rouge on their own noses. This strongly suggest they have realised the image is themselves and the spot of rouge is on their own nose.

Although Amsterdam's results were from a small sample size, they have subsequently been repeated with many more participants. Also, later studies with control conditions have found infants in this age-range don't touch their nose if it isn't marked with rouge. This showed that touching the nose isn't somehow a natural reaction for infants to seeing own reflection.

Self-concept or just self-recognition?

Of course this study simplifies a mass of psychological complexity. Psychologists have raised all sorts of questions about what the mirror test reveals. It could be, for example, that infants just don't understand faces particularly well until they are around two years old. Perhaps, then, they develop a self-concept at a much earlier stage.

Alternatively it could be that at around two years old infants develop a solid physical or visual self-concept, but still have little mentalself-concept. In this case all the test is showing is that we know what we look like; perhaps we don't develop our self-concept until much later in life.

Results are especially ambiguous because only limited tests can be carried out on children.

These are just two common explanations, I'm sure you can think of more alternatives. This multitude of possibilities illustrates one of the major hurdles in child psychology: results are especially ambiguous because only limited tests can be carried out on children. Still, despite these alternatives, the mirror test has proved remarkably hardy over the years and is still used today while other tests have fallen by the wayside.

The social child

One of the reasons for its resilience is that it seems likely that self-concept might well emerge at this age from all the other things we know about children. It is from around 2 to 4 years of age that children start to display a rapid increase in their social behaviour. Being able to distinguish yourself from other people is fundamental to successful social relationships rather than simple interactions. It seems unlikely that infants would be able to build relationships with others without some limited concept of themselves.

Being able to distinguish yourself from other people is fundamental to successful social relationships.

The mirror test has also been used on other animals to test their self-concept, indeed the test was originally carried out on chimpanzees by Professor Gordon Gallup a few years before Amsterdam. All the great apes 'pass' the test, along with dolphins, whales and elephants. In one recent study an 8ft mirror was placed in the elephant enclosure at New York's Bronx Zoo and the elephants had marks painted on their heads. Researchers who kept watch on the elephants' reactions saw them touch the paint marks on their own heads.

It's no coincidence that elephants, like the other animals that pass the test, have complex social systems. Basic self-recognition is key to being able to relate to others; with this knowledge infants take their first faltering steps into the social world.

» This is part of a series on 10 crucial child psychology studies. Read more on the emergence of infant memory,learning, attachment, social behaviour, theory of mind, object permanence, language, play and knowledge.

[Image credit: slimninja]

Reference

Amsterdam, B. (1972). Mirror image reactions before age two. Developmental Psychobiology, 5, 297-305.

 

 

Infant memory works from very early (유아의 기억은 이른 시기에 시작된다)

Some argue it's impossible for us to remember anything much from before around two to four years of age. Others think our memories can go way back - perhaps even to before birth. The question of 'infantile amnesia' is thorny because it's hard to test whether adults' earliest memories are real or imagined.

What psychologists have done, though, is examine the emergence of memory in our first few years with a series of now classic experiments. If memories really can be laid down early in life then it is certainly possible in theory for adults to remember very early experiences.

Getting a kick out of kicking

One classic experiment, devised by Professor Carolyn Rovee-Collier (now at Rutgers University) and colleagues in the 1960s, provides us an insight into what infants can remember. This method has produced some great evidence about how and when infants' memories develops.

In their experiment, Rovee and Rovee (1969) had infants of between 9 and 12 weeks lay comfortably in their cribs at home looking up at a mobile covered with brightly coloured wooden figures.

The more the little kids kick, the more of a kick they get from the mobile.

A cord was then attached to their foot connecting it to the mobile. This meant that if the infants kicked out the mobile would move. And, if they kicked out hard, the wooden figures would bump into each other and make a pleasant knocking sound. The more the little kids kick, the more of a kick they get from the mobile.

If you're starting to get a whiff of Pavlov and his salivating dog then you're on the right lines. This experiment is all about seeing if an infant can be conditioned to kick their foot to make the mobile move. Researchers first measure infants' baseline levels of kicking (with mobile unattached), then compare this to kicking that produces an exciting response (wow, the mobile is moving!).

What Rovee and Rovee (1969) found was that even infants as young as 8 weeks old could learn the association between kicking and the mobile movement. This learning was still evident over a 45-55 minutes period.

Early memories

While this initial finding is fairly modest, the use of this procedure has led to all sorts of new findings about infants' memories. For example, subsequent studies have later substituted a different mobile for the original to see if the infants can spot the difference, thereby testing whether or not they really remember.

In one experiment infants only 8-weeks-old were trained with the mobile over a period of 3 days for 9 minutes each day. Twenty-four hours later the infants only kicked at above their baseline levels when the same mobile was above their heads. This showed they remembered the particular mobile they had been trained with and not just any old mobile. It was an especially exciting finding because it had previously been thought that long-term memory (and 24 hours is long-term for psychologists) didn't emerge until as late as 8 or 9 months.

Our memory systems actually work quite well from very early on.

Because of this experiment and others like it, we now know much more about infant memory. Our memory systems actually work quite well from very early on. Infants' memories also seems to work in much the same way as adult memories - it's just that infant memories are much more fragile.

Carolyn Rovee-Collier argues it is doubtful whether infantile amnesia really exists (Rovee-Collier, 1999). It certainly appears our brains can lay down long-term memories even in the first year of life. The reason it is unusual to retain memories from that time into adulthood is probably because of the limited capacity of our early memory systems and the intervening years during which we inevitably forget.

» This is part of a series on 10 crucial child psychology studies. Read more on the emergence of self-concept,learning, attachment, social behaviour, theory of mind, object permanence, language, play and knowledge.

[Image credit: dolanh]

References

Rovee, C. K., & Rovee, D. T. (1969). Conjugate Reinforcement of Infant Exploratory Behavior. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 8, 33-39.

Rovee-Collier, C. (1999). The Development of Infant Memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8(3), 80-85.

 

 

Infants imitate others when only weeks old (유아는 수주 후 다른사람의 모방을 한다)

One of the most basic forms of social behavior is copying another person. Although imitation is something we adults take for granted, it's actually a pretty demanding process for a young infant.

At the heart of imitation is understanding the difference between yourself and others - something that famous Swiss child psychologist Jean Piaget thought didn't emerge immediately in infants. Consequently he argued that infants could not imitate others until they were 8 to 12 months of age.

Stick your tongue out

In 1977, though, Andrew Meltzoff from Oxford University and M. Keith Moore from the University of Washington published a study that questioned Piaget's theory and was destined to become a classic in child psychology (Meltzoff & Moore, 1977).

Their study was straightforward enough. An experimenter sat in front of tiny infants who were between 12 and 21-days-old. There he stuck his tongue out, opened his mouth, pursed his lips and moved his fingers, then watched, with a blank face, for the infants' reactions.

Sure enough the infants seemed to copy him.

The key to their study, though, was in showing that the infants were really imitating the experimenter rather than just sticking their tongues out or opening their mouths for some other reason. In other words: was this true imitation or something much more basic that couldn't be considered social interaction?

Imitation or something simpler?

Meltzoff and Moore tested all sorts of alternative explanations:

• Were the infants simply getting excited by the experimenter? Probably not: when the experimenter opened his mouth, the infants responded with the same gesture, not by sticking their tongue out. And when the experimenter stuck his tongue out, infants stuck theirs out.
• Was the imitation just a reflex of some kind? Probably not: when infants had a pacifier in their mouths while the experimenter stuck their tongue out, they still imitated him after it was taken out a short time later.
• Had parents been training their children beforehand? No, parents were not told about the purpose of the experiment until afterwards.
• Was the experimenter accidentally signalling the infants after the initial tongue protrusion or mouth purse through further small facial movements? No, the experimenter's face was videotaped and rated independently as blank in the 'infant response periods'.

Born with social skills

This study is a major piece of ammunition for those who argue that infants are born into the world partly pre-programmed for social interactions. It has now been replicated many times and suggests infants don't have to learn to navigate the social world completely from scratch; from a very early age they have some grasp of their bodies and can copy other people.

» This is part of a series on 10 crucial child psychology studies. Read more on the emergence of infant memory,self-concept, learning, attachment, theory of mind, object permanence, language, play and knowledge.

[Image credit: xtopalopaquetl]

Reference

Meltzoff, A., & Moore, M. (1977). Imitation of Facial and Manual Gestures by Human Neonates. Science, 198(4312), 75-78.

 

 

When children begin to simulate other minds (아동들이 다른 사람의 마음을 흉내내기 시작할 때)

One superpower all psychologists would kill for is the ability to read minds. Not only would it make psychology research a lot easier, we would be able to experience what it is like to be someone else - a fascinating prospect. Although telepathy is still science fiction most of us can do something clever that, while only a pale imitation, does allow us to step inside other people's minds in a limited way. We can do this because our brains are fantastic simulators - we can, for example, predict the paths objects will take through space and the decisions we should make now to cause a future event. Similarly, we can put ourselves in other people's shoes to try and imagine their thoughts, intentions and possible actions. In fact without the ability to simulate what other people are thinking we would be lost in the social world.

Theory of mind

Psychologists call this ability to simulate or work out what others are thinking 'theory of mind'. The emergence of theory of mind in children is a vital developmental milestone; some psychologists think that a failure to develop a theory of mind is a central component of autism. The first experiment to provide evidence about when theory of mind emerges using a test of false beliefs was carried out by Heinz Wimmer and Josef Perner from the University of Salzburg (Wimmer & Perner, 1983). To test the emergence of 'theory of mind' the researchers wanted to find out whether children could pass a false belief test. To pass the test children have to understand that it's possible for other people to hold beliefs that are different to their own. This is a surprisingly tricky task when your brain is so new it's still under warrantee.

Test of false belief

Wimmer and Perner tested children between 3 and 9-years-old by telling them a story about a boy called Maxi whose mother had brought home some chocolate to make a cake. When she gets home Maxi sees her put the chocolate into a blue cupboard. Then Maxi goes out to play.Meanwhile his mother uses the chocolate for the cake but happens to put it back in the green cupboard. When Maxi comes back in he feels hungry and wants some chocolate. The children in the experiment are then asked, not where the chocolate is, but which cupboard Maxi will look in. In the experiment the story is also acted out using dolls and matchboxes to make the story explicit for the children.

Results

The results showed that 3 to 4-year-olds tended to fail the test by pointing to the actual position of the chocolate rather than where Maxi thought it was. They seemed unable to understand that although they knew where it was, Maxi didn't. Wimmer and Perner (1983) argued that this was because they could not construct a separate mental model of the world that represented Maxi's experience - they weren't capable of a theory of mind. From about 4 to 5-years-old the situation changed dramatically. Suddenly the children tended to point to the cupboard where Maxi thought the chocolate was, rather than where they knew it was. However in some variations of the experiment children up to 5-years-old still had problems understanding someone else's false belief. Finally, at 6-years-old, the children did consistently understand that another person can hold a false belief about the world.

End of innocence

This experiment suggested that at about 4 to 6-years old a range of remarkable skills start to emerge in young children that are vital for their successful functioning in society. They begin to understand that others can hold false beliefs, they themselves can lie, and that others can lie to them. From one perspective it is a sad end to innocence, but from another it is a necessary base for a skill required for social success. At around 4-years-old children are starting to understand that we don't live out there in the world, we actually create a model of the world in our heads, a model that can easily be wrong.

Criticisms and alternative explanations

Like many child psychology studies, this experiment has sparked much debate about what its results mean. Here are some of the alternative explanations addressed by the experimenters:

• Were the kids concentrating? Yes, they correctly answered questions that showed they were concentrating.
• Had the younger children forgotten the story? No, they were given a memory test which they passed.
• Were the younger children just pointing at where the chocolate was without thinking about the question? In another experiment children were specifically told to stop and think - this didn't help the younger children.

While this experiment has been criticised, and other methods have been developed for examining theory of mind in children, tasks like this one are still in use around the world to this day, helping to uncover how and when we first develop the ability to understand other people's thoughts.

» This is part of a series on 10 crucial child psychology studies. Read more on the emergence of infant memory,self-concept, learning, attachment, social behaviour, object permanence, language, play and knowledge.

[Image credit: Thomas Hawk]

References

Wimmer, H., & Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception. Cognition, 13(1), 103-28.