At 3 years old, children are already able to ‘mirror’ themselves in others, the reason in a study

Already At 3 years old, children are able to understand others“mirroring” themselves in the person in front of them to imitate them and anticipate their intentions. All thanks to the mirror neurons. In fact, children are equipped with this sophisticated neurofunctional architecture on which the understanding of other people’s intentions is based. Mirror neurons are already active at this age. This is what was discovered in a Italian study published in the scientific journal ‘Pnas’born from the collaboration between Giacomo Rizzolatti of the University of Parma, father of the discovery of mirror neurons, and the research group composed of Cinzia Di Dio, Laura Miraglia, Giulia Peretti and coordinated by Antonella Marchetti, director of the Department of Psychology of the Catholic University, Milan Campus.

“This is – explains Marchetti – a very important discovery as it demonstrates that, even at such a young age, children are equipped with the ‘resonance’ system constituted by mirror neurons, which represent the building blocks on which, with development and experience, an increasingly complex and articulated understanding of the social world will be built“. Although preschool children are able to plan chains of motor actions oriented to a goal, their understanding of the intentions of other individuals engaged in motor tasks had not been thoroughly investigated until now. The group from the Catholic University, together with Rizzolatti, measured the ability of preschool children to organize a chain of motor actions, understanding the intent of the chain of actions of another individual.

To test this ability, The group measured activation of the mylohyoid muscle, involved in opening the mouth, as children grabbed a bite of food to eat or a piece of paper to put into a container. When grasping food, activation of the mylohyoid muscle began several milliseconds before the action was completed. The muscle did not activate when grasping paper, suggesting a planned chain of motor events focused on the goal of the action. Even when infants watched an experimenter perform the same grasping tasks, the mylohyoid muscle was activated during observation of the grasping-for-eating task.

However, explains Marchetti, “we discovered that Muscle activation occurs more slowly than in older children, 6-9 years old (examined by previous studies), supported by the appearance of more sophisticated cognitive processes“. According to the authors, the results suggest that understanding the motor intentions of others is a developing ability in preschool children. “In conclusion – the scientist emphasizes – the current data provide further support to the evidence regarding the various stages of development in this domain, in continuity with those researches on very young children, which show an early attunement with the motor acts directed to the goal”.

These “the results are also relevant in terms of early diagnosis, for example in the case of children with autism spectrum disorderbecause they would make possible an instrumental psychophysical evaluation of a possible deficit in understanding intentions and of a possible impairment of fundamental precursors for the development of social skills”, concludes Marchetti.