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Origins of Social Cognition: Bidirectional Self-Other Mapping and the “Like-Me” Hypothesis

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Origins of Social Cognition: Bidirectional Self-Other Mapping and the “Like-Me” Hypothesis OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Sat Dec 22 2012, NEWGEN Meltzoff, A.N. (2013). Origins of social cognition: Bidirectional self-other mapping and the “Like-Me” hypothesis. In M. Banaji & S. Gelman (Eds.), Navigating the social world: What infants, children, and other species can teach us (pp. 139-144). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 3.3 Origins of Social Cognition Bidirectional Self-Other Mapping and the “Like-Me” Hypothesis ANDREW N. MELTZOFF uman social cognition begins in the new- self and other suff ers from the same problem, and Hborn period. When the human newborn were precursors to Piaget’s more sophisticated opens its eyes and sees a human act for the fi rst writing on the initial state. time, I have proposed that this engenders a feel- Fourth, although contemporary work on social ing of interpersonal connectedness. To explain primitives has shown that infants have visual pref- the idea, I off ered the “Like-Me” developmental erences for faces (Johnson and Morton), eyespots hypothesis. Th e key suggestion is that perceiving (Baron-Cohen), and self-mobile entities (Leslie), others as like me is a social primitive. Th e new my proposal goes beyond cues that induce infant empirical research shows that the core sense of visual attention. Infants’ supramodal representa- similarity to others is not the culmination of tion of human action maps external events to the social development, but the precondition for it. self. Crucially, this goes beyond heightened atten- Without this initial felt connection to others, tion, preference, and visual expectations. human social cognition would not take the dis- In this essay I will discuss empirical studies tinctively human form that it does. concerning two social learning mechanisms that In the past, philosophers, social theorists, build on the “like-me” primitive—imitation and and psychologists have considered related ideas, gaze following. Th e studies illuminate three aspects but the foregoing departs from historical discus- of social cognition: (a) origins, (b) mechanisms of sions in four ways. First, the relevant philosophers change, and (c) bidirectional learning between (e.g., Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Ryle) did not imag- self and other. Th e studies support the view that ine that this process begins at birth. Th ese phi- “like me” is a social primitive that gives rise to losophers postulated that self-other mapping and a life-long ability to connect to other humans, fi rst steps toward cracking the problem of Other which is vital to our survival as a species. Minds were late emerging and mediated by lan- Humans have a long period of infantile imma- guage and/or deliberate introspective reasoning. turity compared to other animals. Th is immatu- Second, many sociologists and social psy- rity has coevolved with powerful social learning chologists working with adults gave priority to mechanisms. Two of these social learning mech- social learning from the outside in: An unformed anisms—imitation and gaze following—are self is given coherence by how others react to it functional in human infancy, rare in the animal (Cooley, Mead)—the “looking-glass self.” Instead, kingdom, and impoverished in autism. If one as I will show, infants also use self-experience to seeks to understand the birth, growth, and mech- give meaning to the observed behavior of others anisms of change in human social cognition, imi- in ways these theorists missed. tation and gaze following are promising domains Th ird, Piaget’s work with infants led him to to investigate. theorize that they start out as “solipsists” with no Imitation supports rapid learning of behav- links between self and other. Piaget was unable ioral skills, social customs, and causal relations to provide a satisfactory mechanism of change by observation. Rather than relying purely on from initial solipsism to the rich social cognition maturation (which is not responsive to cultural of 5-year-olds, because he underestimated the contingencies), independent invention (which is initial state. Freud’s and Baldwin’s neonatal “adu- slow) or trial and error (which can be dangerous), lism,” merging, or lack of diff erentiation between humans excel in imitative learning from others in 25_Banaji_Ch3.3.indd 139 12/27/2012 9:42:26 PM OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Sat Dec 22 2012, NEWGEN 140 Imitation, Modeling, and Learning From and About Others the environment. A key to human imitation is that congenital aspect of human social cognition, with it is not slavish or mindless duplication. Children much known at the behavioral-psychological level, and adults selectively regulate who, what, and and rapid progress being made illucidating infant when to imitate. Imitative learning is a chief ave- neural mirroring mechanisms (e.g., Marshall & nue for social learning prior to language, but it Meltzoff , 2011; Saby, Marshall, & Meltzoff , 2012). also plays a role when adults are in novel social Infants’ self-experience may play a role in imi- settings. Visiting a foreign country in which social tation. Even at birth infants have had experience greetings and eating implements diff er from ours with self-generated movements, which we call reminds us of the value of imitating experts rather body babbling (Meltzoff & Moore, 1997). Films of than reliance on trial and error or invention. prenatal behavior, for example, reveal that fetuses Following the gaze of other people directs our make repeated lip, tongue, and hand movements in attention to particular regions of space. Our atten- utero. Body babbling provides infants with experi- tion is directed to locations, objects, and events ence in how their own body moves. Body babbling that are particularly rich in information. Th ese is a mechanism for infants’ learning about control- “information hot spots” do not stand out based ling their body, analogous to how vocal babbling on physical cues alone. Th ey are not necessarily provides experience in vocal maneuvers (Kuhl & bigger, brighter, or more visually conspicuous. Meltzoff , 1982). Tongues move diff erently from Th ey gain psychological salience merely because a hinged joints such as fi ngers and elbows. Based on social other has looked at them. Perceptual align- self-experience with the felt movements of one’s ment with others undergirds common ground for own body, the kinetic signatures of a tongue pro- communication and supports pedagogy and col- trusion/withdrawal (or mouth opening/closing, laborative learning. or fi nger fl exing) could be recognized as cross- modally equivalent to those produced by others. IMITATION AS SOCIAL COGNITION Personal Identity Th eories of developing social cognition must Bodily Imitation be concerned with personal identity. How does In facial imitation, infants are duplicating a gesture an infant distinguish one person from another they see with a gesture of their own that they can- and reidentify a person as the “same one” again not see themselves make. Developmentalists have despite changes in surface appearances? Infants’ known for more than 50 years that 1-year-olds social worlds would be very diff erent from ours if imitate facial gestures, but it was a surprise to dis- an interpersonal relationship were not maintained cover that newborns as young as 42 minutes old when the surface features of the other were altered. imitate such acts (Meltzoff & Moore, 1983). Th is is related to the topic of object individuation Newborn facial imitation provides informa- and numerical identity (Moore & Meltzoff , 2009; tion about the initial state of social cognition. Spelke, Breinlinger, Macomber, & Jacobson, 1992; Newborns can see another person move but have Xu & Carey, 1996), but considers the identity of never seen their own face. Th is apparent gulf people who disappear and reappear and change between self and other is reminiscent of the Other appearance. Minds problem in philosophy (albeit at the level We discovered that infant imitation contrib- of actions and not intentional states). We know utes to infants’ understanding of personal iden- ourselves from the inside and others from the tity. Infants use both a person’s spatial history outside: How do we understand what it is like to (spatiotemporal parameters) and the prior expe- be another person, to feel what the other person rience of interacting with that person (functional feels? parameters) to determine a person’s identity. I have argued that imitation is based on active When infants are ambiguous about whether this is intermodal mapping, positing a primitive and the same person they saw previously, infants show foundational body scheme that allows infants to increased imitation of the person’s past behavior, unify the seen acts of others and their own felt as if verifying “Are you the one who does x?” Body acts in a shared framework. Meltzoff and Moore actions, mannerisms, and distinctive interactive (1997) postulated that human infants accomplish games and routines played by particular people this via a “supramodal” representation of human are akin to nonverbal shared memories that can acts. Links between perception and production do be used as identity markers of people. not have to be forged through associative learn- Th e value of using human acts as criteria for ing but are available to the newborn. Imitation is a identity is that they allow infants to test as well 25_Banaji_Ch3.3.indd 140 12/27/2012 9:42:29 PM OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Sat Dec 22 2012, NEWGEN Origins of Social Cognition 141 as to observe. Instead of being limited to gen- being preserved. Neonates can successfully imi- eralized reactions, such as smiling, cooing, and tate without yet knowing what their acts look like greeting of “humans in general,” infants have a in a purely visual sense from the outside. Classical tool for intervening to actively probe whether developmental and psychoanalytic theory (e.g., they are re- encountering the same individual Lacan) implicated physical mirrors in the onto- aft er a perceptual break or change in appearance.
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