Motor mimicry

Motor mimicry is a common neurological phenomenon where a person reacts to an event happening to someone else.

Motor mimicry can also have more social and emotional manifestations, like unconsciously matching a peer's posture or speech patterns.

[1] The working definition of motor mimicry is: 1. an action similar to one made by the other person 2. an action one that the other person might make in their situation 3. not what an observer would do simply as an observer 4. not irrelevant or involuntary behaviors Traditional views on motor mimicry have seen it stemming from empathy, or feeling what someone else is.

More recently, it has been revealed that motor mimicry is more communicative and acts as a nonverbal message between people (Bavelas et al. 1986).

In general, motor mimicry has been observed for more than two centuries, and while it has been dismissed as being "primitive" but has still evaded many theories made about the phenomenon.

In Allport's study on infants, he observed that "the child tends to assume the movements, strains and attitudes of the model."

In two parallel experiments, O'Toole and Dubin studied observers saying forward while a subject reached for something in front of them, as well as mothers opening their mouths while spoon feeding a baby.

However, a large issue in this experiment was that O'Toole and Dubin did not take into account static ataxia, which is the natural forward movement we have even with the individual is attempting to stand perfectly still.

Taking on the same posture, head movements, gestures and even speech patterns as the person interacting with us is a universal human characteristic.

When considering social mimicry, how a person feels about, or empathizes with the people around them is a large factor in where someone will mimic those around them.

For example, a study done found, "that men mimic a physically attractive woman more when they are trying to express romantic interest".

A study by Chartrand and Duffy showed that automatic mimicry of hand movements increased when the participants were making continued eye contact.

[7] Children with autism spectrum disorder show impairments in mimicry and imitation, specifically in social settings.

The domain-general model is an extension of the ASL theory and suggests that mimicry has no specific use and is obtained through social conditioning.