Vivanti Giacomo, Hocking Darren R, Fanning Peter, Dissanayake Cheryl
A.J. Drexel Autism Institute, Drexel University, 3020 Market Street, Suite 560, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3734, USA; Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC 3086, Australia.
Developmental Neuromotor & Cognition Lab, School of Psychology & Public Health, La Trobe University, Australia.
Cognition. 2017 Apr;161:10-18. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.01.008. Epub 2017 Jan 12.
When imitating novel actions, typically developing preschoolers often copy components of the demonstration that are unrelated to the modeled action's goal, a phenomenon known as 'overimitation'. According to the social motivation account, overimitation fulfills social affiliation motives (i.e., the imitator's drive to experience social connectedness with the demonstrator and the social context). Conversely, according to the social-cognitive account, overimitation reflects overattribution of causal relevance (i.e., the imitator's failure to appreciate that some components of the demonstration are not relevant to the action's outcome). Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and William syndrome (WS) are characterized by reduced and enhanced spontaneous social motivation, respectively, as well as similar impairments in social-cognition, thus providing helpful test cases to understand the nature of overimitation. Using a novel eye-tracking paradigm, we examined overimitation in 31 preschoolers with ASD, 18 age- and IQ-matched peers with WS, and 19 age-matched typically developing children. We found that children with WS and typically developing children were more likely to overimitate, and to increase their attention to the model's face during demonstration of causally irrelevant actions, compared to those with ASD. These findings will be discussed in the context of support for the social-motivational account of overimitation.
在模仿新动作时，正常发育的学龄前儿童通常会模仿示范中与示范动作目标无关的部分，这一现象被称为“过度模仿”。根据社会动机理论，过度模仿满足了社会归属动机（即模仿者渴望与示范者及社会环境建立社会联系的驱动力）。相反，根据社会认知理论，过度模仿反映了对因果相关性的过度归因（即模仿者没有认识到示范中的某些部分与动作结果无关）。自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）和威廉姆斯综合征（WS）分别表现为自发社会动机降低和增强，以及在社会认知方面有类似的损伤，因此为理解过度模仿的本质提供了有益的测试案例。我们使用一种新颖的眼动追踪范式，对31名患有ASD的学龄前儿童、18名年龄和智商匹配的WS儿童以及19名年龄匹配的正常发育儿童进行了过度模仿测试。我们发现，与患有ASD的儿童相比，患有WS的儿童和正常发育的儿童更有可能过度模仿，并且在展示因果无关动作时会增加对示范者面部的关注。这些发现将在支持过度模仿的社会动机理论的背景下进行讨论。
