Facial Embodiment in ‘Invisible’ Imitation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/ths.2003.008Keywords
facial embodiment, imitation, communication, mirror theory, molyneux babies,Abstract
If the self gains access to life proper exclusively from ‘inside’, through an evane¬scent first-person sense of being the subject of its own acts, feelings, thoughts and desires, then any manifestation of internal states in external behavior can count as an indirect translation of an invisible mind into a manifest bodily performance, which reveals as much as it masks one’s real intentions and desires. Social relations remain then a problem to be resolved rather than a field to be investigated. However, if embodiment is central to any theory of persons and to inter-personal communication, then the clear-cut distinction between the inside and the outside is blurred and the ‘problem’ of inter-personal communication ultimately resolved. If self and other are made of the same corporeal stuff and are similar despite differences, they can engage one with one another directly, through manifest behavior, without the need to translate some hidden invisible subjectivity into the visible mundane world. Communication begins already on the surface of the expressive face, in the tonality of the voice, in the affective charge of the gaze.References
Baron-Cohen, S. 1995: Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Brown, R., Hobson, R. P., and Lee A. 1997: “Are there ‘Autistic-like’ Features in Conge-nitally Blind Children?” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 38, N° 6, pp. 693-703.
Cole, J. 1998: About Face. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998.
Dastur, F. 2000: “World, Flesh, Vision.” In Chiasms. Merleau-Ponty s Notion of Flesh. Evans, F. and Lawlor L. (eds.). Albany: SUNY Press, pp. 23-19.
Gallagher, S. 1986a: “Body Image and Body Schema: A Conceptual Clarification.” Journal of Mind and Behavior, Vol. 7, pp. 541-554.
Gallagher, S. 1995: “Body Schema and Intentionality.” In The Body and the Self. Bermudez J. L., Marcel A. and Eilan N. (eds.). Cambridge MA, MIT Press, pp. 225-244.
Gallagher, S. 2001: “The Practice of Mind. Theory, Simulation or Primary Interaction?” Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8, No. 5-7, pp. 83-108.
Gallagher, S. and Cole, J. 1995. Body schema and body image in a deafferented subject. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 16: 369-390.
Gallagher, S. and Meltzoff, A. N.l996: “The earliest sense of self and others: Merleau- Ponty and recent developmental studies.” Philosophical Psychology, Vol. 9, N° 2, pp. 211-233.
Gregory, R. L. and Wallace, J. G. 1963: “Recovery from Early Blindness: A case Study.” Quarterly Journal of Psychology. Reprinted in Concepts and Mechanisms of Perception, Gregory R. L. London: Duckworth, 1974.
Husserl, E. 1991: On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time.I. B. Brough (trans.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Lacan, J. “The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psycho-analytic experience.” In Ecrits. A Selection. A. Sheridan (trans.). London: Tavistock/ Routledge, 1989.
Meltzoff, A. N. 1990: “Foundations for Developing a Concept of Self: The Role of Imitation in Relating Self to Other and the Value of Social Mirroring, Social Modeling, and Self Practice in Infancy.” Reprinted from The Self in Transition: Infancy to Childhood. Cicchetti D. and Beegly M. (eds.). Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, pp. 139-164.
Meltzoff, A. N. 1990a: “Towards a Developmental Cognitive Science. The Implications of Cross-Modal Matching and Imitation for the Development of Representation and Memory in Infancy.” Reprinted from The Development of Neural Bases of Higher Cognitive Functions. Vol. 608 of The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, pp. 1-37.
Meltzoff, A. N. 1993: “Molyneux babies: Cross-modal perception, imitation and the mind of the preverbal infant.” In N. Eilan, R. McCarthy and B. Brewer (eds.), Spatial Representation. Problems in Philosophy and Psychology. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, pp. 219-234.
Meltzoff, A. N. 1993a: “The centrality of motor coordination and proprioception in social and cognitive development: from shared actions to shared minds.” In The Develop¬ment of Coordination in Infancy. Geert J. P. Savelsbergh (ed.). Amsterdam: North Holland, pp. 463-496.
Meltzoff, A. N. and Borton, R. W. 1979: “Intermodal matching by human neonates.” Nature, Vol. 282, N° 5735, pp. 403-404.
Meltzoff, A. N. and Brooks, R. 2001: “ ‘Like Me’ as a Building Block for Understanding Other Minds: Bodily Acts, Attention and Intention.” In Intentions and Intentionality. Foundations of Social Cognition.
Malle, B. F., Moses L. J. and Baldwin D. A. (eds.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 171-195.
Meltzoff, A. N. and Gopnik, A. 1998: Words, Thoughts and Theories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Meltzoff, A. N. and Gopnik, A. 1993: “The role of imitation in understanding persons and developing a theory of mind.” In Understanding Other Minds.
Perspectives from Autism. Baron-Cohen, S., Tager-Flusber H. and Cohen D. J. (eds.). Oxford University Press, pp. 335-366.
Meltzoff, A. N. and Moore, K. 1977: “Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates.” Science, 198, pp. 75-78.
Meltzoff, A. N. and Moore, K. 1983: “Newborn Infants Imitate Facial Gestures.” Child Development, 54, pp. 702-709.
Meltzoff, A. N. and Moore, K. 1989: “Imitation in Newborn Infants: Exploring the Range of Gestures Imitated and the Underlying Mechanisms.” Developmental Psychology. 1989, Vol. 25, pp. 954-962.
Meltzoff, A. N. and Moore, K. 1993: “Why faces are special to infants - on connecting the attraction of faces and infants’ ability for imitation and cross-modal processing.”
In Developmental Neurocognition: Speech and Face Processing in the First Year of Life. Boysson-Bardies, de. B. (ed.), Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 211-225.
Meltzoff, A. N. and Moore, K. 1994: “Imitation, Memory and the Representation of Persons.” Infant Behavior and Development 17, pp. 83-99.
Meltzoff, A. N. and Moore, K. 1995: “A Theory of the Role of Imitation in the Emergence of Self. In The Self in Infancy: Theory and Research.” P. Rochat (ed.) Elsevier Science B. V.
Meltzoff, A. N. and Moore, K. 1997: “Explaining Facial Imitation: A Theoretical Model.” Early Development and Parenting, Vol. 6, pp. 179-192.
Merleau-Ponty, M. 1964: “The Child’s Relations with Others.” In The Primacy of Perception. W. Cobb (trans.). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. 1968: The Visible and the Invisible. Translated by A. Lingis. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Piaget, J. 1954: The Construction of Reality in the Child. New York: Basic Books. Piaget, J. 1962: Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood. New York: Norton.
Sacks, O. 1995: An Anthropologist on Mars. London: Picador.
Sandler, A.-M., and Hobson, R. P. 2001: “On Engaging with People in Early Childhood: The Case of Congenital Blindness.” Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 6 (2), pp. 205-222.
Sartre, J. P. Being and Nothingness. An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. Translated by H. E. Barnes. New York: Philosophical Library, 1956.
Stawarska, B. (in press): “The Body, the Mirror and the Other in Merleau-Ponty and Sartre.” In S. Gallagher and S. Watson (eds.), Ipseity and Alterity: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Intersubjectivity. Rouen: Presses Universitaires de Rouen.
Valvo, A. 1971: Sight Restoration after Long-Term Blindness: The Problems and Behavior Patterns of Visual Rehabilitation. New York: American Foundation for the Blind.
Wider, K. 1999: “The self and others: Imitation in infants and Sartre’s analysis of the look.” Continental Philosophy Review Vol. 32, pp. 195-210.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Stats
Number of views and downloads: 985
Number of citations: 0
