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Mommy or me? Who is the agent in a sense of agency in infant orofacial stereotypies?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2017

Gerry Leisman
Gerry Leisman*
Affiliation:
The National Institute for Brain and Rehabilitation Sciences, Nazareth, Israel 16470. g.leisman@alumni.manchester.ac.uk www.nibrs.org Laboratory for Clinical Neurophysiology, Institute for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de la Habana, Havana, Cuba 10400.
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Abstract

That neonates imitate is an assertion that lacks supporting evidence. Orofacial stereotypies are critical to optimizing food rejection. Matching of tongue-protrusion is not imitation, but a manifestation of the infant's arousal by the modeler's exhibition of the same behavior. The support for the nativist assertion that newborn infants imitate is not compelling, and we should proceed on the assumption that they do not.

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Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e393
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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