ABSTRACT
Recent demonstrations that infants within hours of birth are capable of copying facial gestures, such as mouth-opening and tongue-protrusion, have challenged claims by Piaget (1962) about the ontogeny of imitative behavior. Piaget argued that prior to about 8-months-of-age infants are able to imitate only those gestures that they can see or hear themselves perform. Opening and closing the hand is one such gesture. Imitation of behaviors within this category is considered to become possible after infants link their own visible actions with the associated motor movements. When observing a model presenting the visual component of such a visual-motor circular reaction, the infant produces the motor component.
