The temporal relationship between reduction of early imitative responses and the development of attention mechanisms

Atsuko Nakagawa¹ , Masune Sukigara¹ and Oana Benga²

¹The School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nagoya City University, Yamanohata, Mizuho-cho, Mizuho-ku, Nagoya 467-8501, Japan

²Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Babes-Bolyai University, Bilascu 37,3400 Cluj-Napoca, Romania

author email corresponding author email

BMC Neuroscience 2003, 4:33doi:10.1186/1471-2202-4-33


Published:	24 December 2003

Abstract

Background

To determine whether early imitative responses fade out following the maturation of attentional mechanisms, the relationship between primitive imitation behaviors and the development of attention was examined in 4-month-old infants. They were divided into high and low imitators, based on an index of imitation. The status of attention was assessed by studying inhibition of return (IOR). Nine-month-old infants were also tested to confirm the hypothesis.

Results

The IOR latency data replicate previous results that infants get faster to produce a covert shift of attention with increasing age. However, those 4-month-olds who showed less imitation had more rapid saccades to the cue before target presentation.

Conclusion

The cortical control of saccade planning appears to be related to an apparent drop in early imitation. We interpret the results as suggesting a relationship between the status of imitation and the neural development of attention-related eye movement.