Imitative response tendencies following observation of intransitive actions.

Clear and unequivocal evidence shows that observation of object affordances or transitive actions facilitates the activation of a compatible response. By contrast, the evidence showing response facilitation following observation of intransitive actions is less conclusive because automatic imitation and spatial compatibility have been confounded. Three experiments tested whether observation of a finger movement (i.e., an intransitive action) in a choice reaction-time task facilitates the corresponding finger movement response because of imitation, a common spatial code, or some combination of both factors. The priming effects of a spatial and an imitative stimulus were tested in combination (Experiment 1), in opposition (Experiment 2), and independently (Experiment 3). Contrary to previous findings, the evidence revealed significant contributions from both automatic imitation and spatial compatibility, but the priming effects from an automatic tendency to imitate declined significantly across a block of trials whereas the effects of spatial compatibility remained constant or increased slightly. These differential effects suggest that priming associated with automatic imitation is mediated by a different regime than priming associated with spatial compatibility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perception of biomechanical motions by infants: Implementation of various processing constraints.

Geometry informs us that there exist a large number of possible connectivity patterns consistent with a point-light display of a person walking. Yet there is only one pattern consistent with a "stick figure" representation of the human form, and that pattern is uniquely specified by those pairwise connections that remain locally rigid. In this study, sensitivity to local rigidity in biomechanical displays was investigated in 3- and 5-month-old infants. The results of Experiment 1 revealed that by 5 months of age, infants discriminate a locally rigid point-light walker display from one in which local rigidity is perturbed. In Experiment 2 we tested infants' sensitivity to the same stimuli when those stimuli were inverted. Contrary to the preceding experiment, the results revealed no evidence of discrimination. Taken together, these findings suggest that infants are sensitive to local rigidity in biomechanical displays but that this sensitivity is orientation specific. Possible mechanisms for this specificity are discussed in the context of additional constraints on the processing of biomechanical displays. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on everyday psychopathology and narcissism.

Presents evidence in support of H. Kohut's (1971, 1977) psychology of the self that is derived from an examination of psychopathology of the self in everyday life. Themes considered include narcissistic disturbances stimulated by common situations, the need to be sustained by self objects and the idealization of sports or entertainment figures, the role of sports as a means to act out fantasies of omnipotence, and the effect of illness on narcissistic fantasies of invulnerability. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of self-recognition in the infant.

A hypothesized 5-stage developmental sequence of self-recognition behaviors was tested in 48 infants between 6 and 24 mo of age, and the self-recognition sequence was compared to the development of object permanence. The predicted self-recognition sequence consisted of 5 tasks that Ss performed in front of the mirror, with later-developing tasks requiring the coordination of a larger number of behaviors relating to S's mirror image than earlier-developing tasks. The development of object permanence was assessed with the Uzgiris-Hunt scale, and the object-permanence items were assigned to stages that structurally paralleled the 5 stages of self-recognition. The self-recognition tasks formed an almost perfect Guttman scale, with 46 out of 48 Ss fitting the predicted developmental sequence precisely. This finding thus resolves most of the disagreements in previous research on the development of self-recognition: Previous studies examined different behaviors, which develop at distinct stages in the sequence. Object permanence and self-recognition showed a strong correlation, but there was no consistent relationship between the 2 skills across age groups. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Infants' encoding of kinetic displays varying in relative coherence.

Two experiments were conducted to assess 3-month-old infants' processing of moving point-light displays depicting the biomechanical motions of a person walking. The displays were computer-generated and varied in stimulus coherence as measured by a version of coding theory. An infant-control habituation paradigm was used to measure both encoding and discrimination of the stimuli. Experiment 1 involved two point-light displays with identical absolute motions but different degrees of relative coherence. The results revealed that these two displays were discriminable and that encoding was systematically related to their relative coherence. Experiment 2 revealed that two new displays varying less in their coherence were also differentially encoded but were not discriminated. It was concluded that infants' processing of kinetic displays varies as a function of their relative coherence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)