Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia 4072.
Trends Cogn Sci. 2021 May;25(5):377-387. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2021.02.006. Epub 2021 Mar 13.
Neonatal imitation is widely accepted as fact and cited as evidence of an inborn mirror neuron system that underpins human social behaviour, even though its existence has been debated for decades. The possibility that newborns do not imitate was reinvigorated recently by powerful longitudinal data and novel analyses. Although the evidence is still mixed, recent research progresses the debate by ruling out some long-standing explanations for why the effect might be difficult to detect, by showing that only some research groups observe it, and by revealing indications that the published literature is biased. Further advances will be made with updated testing procedures and reporting standards, and investigation of new research questions such as how infants could learn to imitate.
新生儿模仿行为被广泛认为是事实，并被作为支持人类社会行为的内在镜像神经元系统的证据，尽管其存在已经争论了几十年。最近，有力的纵向数据和新的分析重新引发了新生儿是否模仿的可能性的争论。尽管证据仍然存在分歧，但最近的研究进展通过排除一些长期存在的解释，即为什么难以检测到这种影响，通过表明只有一些研究小组观察到这种影响，以及揭示表明已发表文献存在偏见的迹象，推动了这一争论。随着更新的测试程序和报告标准的制定，以及对新研究问题的研究，如婴儿如何学会模仿，将会取得进一步的进展。
