Delayed imitation of lipsmacking gestures by infant rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta)

Paukner, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3421-1864, Ferrari, PF and Suomi, SJ, 2011. Delayed imitation of lipsmacking gestures by infant rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). PLoS ONE, 6 (12): e28848. ISSN 1932-6203

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Abstract

Human infants are capable of accurately matching facial gestures of an experimenter within a few hours after birth, a phenomenon called neonatal imitation. Recent studies have suggested that rather than being a simple reflexive-like behavior, infants exert active control over imitative responses and ‘provoke’ previously imitated gestures even after a delay of up to 24 h. Delayed imitation is regarded as the hallmark of a sophisticated capacity to control and flexibly engage in affective communication and has been described as an indicator of innate protoconversational readiness. However, we are not the only primates to exhibit neonatal imitation, and delayed imitation abilities may not be uniquely human. Here we report that 1-week-old infant rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) who show immediate imitation of a lipsmacking gesture also show delayed imitation of lipsmacking, facilitated by a tendency to refrain from lipsmacking toward a still face during baseline measurements. Individual differences in delayed imitation suggest that differentially matured cortical mechanisms may be involved, allowing some newborns macaques to actively participate in communicative exchanges from birth. Macaque infants are endowed with basic social competencies of intersubjective communication that indicate cognitive and emotional commonality between humans and macaques, which may have evolved to nurture an affective mother-infant relationship in primates.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	PLoS ONE
Creators:	Paukner, A., Ferrari, P.F. and Suomi, S.J.
Publisher:	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date:	12 December 2011
Volume:	6
Number:	12
ISSN:	1932-6203
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1371/journal.pone.0028848 DOI 1427725 Other
Rights:	This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	25 Mar 2021 15:43
Last Modified:	31 May 2021 15:05
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/42593

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