Copy me or copy you? The effect of prior experience on social learning

Wood, Lara A.; Kendal, Rachel L.; Flynn, Emma

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.01.002

Cited by 62 publications

(82 citation statements)

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“…Factors such as functional fixedness (German & Defeyter, 2000), explicit instruction (Bonawitz et al, 2011), prior social information (Wood et al, 2013a), and task structure (Cutting, Apperly, Chappell, & Beck, 2014) likely constrain it. Innovation can be delineated in terms of arising from asocial learning (innovation by independent invention) or a combination of asocial and social learning (innovation by modification; Carr, Kendal, & Flynn, under revision).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…However, children are not blind to the quality of information they observe. By altering the frequency and fidelity with which they imitate, in line with the perceived goal of a demonstration (Bekkering, Wohlschläger, & Gattis, 2000;Carpenter, Call, & Tomasello, 2005), model reliability and intentionality (Birch, Vauthier, & Bloom, 2008;Carpenter, Akhtar, & Tomasello, 1998), task difficulty and prior experience (Gardiner, Bjorklund, Greif, & Gray, 2012;Pinkham & Jaswal, 2011;Williamson & Meltzoff, 2011;Wood et al, 2013a), children display rationality and flexibility in their social learning (Koenig & Sabbagh, 2013;Mills, 2013;Over & Carpenter, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…As with van Bergen, Coolen, and Laland (2004), in the current study we manipulated information reliability with the aim of observing adaptive trade-offs in learning. However, given children's proclivity for imitation, and apparent tendency to collect social information despite possessing adequate personal information (Wood, Kendal, & Flynn, 2013a), we did so by manipulating the reliability of social information.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Imitate or innovate? Children’s innovation is influenced by the efficacy of observed behaviour

2015

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This study investigated the age at which children judge it futile to imitate unreliable information, in the form of a visibly ineffective demonstrated solution, and deviate to produce novel solutions ('innovations'). Children aged 4-9 years were presented with a novel puzzle box, the Multiple-Methods Box (MMB), which offered multiple innovation opportunities to extract a reward using different tools, access points and exits. 209 children were assigned to conditions in which eight social demonstrations of a reward retrieval method were provided; each condition differed incrementally in terms of the method's efficacy (0%, 25%, 75%, and 100% success at extracting the reward). An additional 47 children were assigned to a no-demonstration control condition. Innovative reward extractions from the MMB increased with decreasing efficacy of the demonstrated method. However, imitation remained a widely used strategy irrespective of the efficacy of the method being reproduced (90% of children produced at least one imitative attempt, and imitated on an average of 4.9 out of 8 attempt trials). Children were more likely to innovate in relation to the tool than exit, even though the latter would have been more effective. Overall, innovation was rare: only 12.4% of children innovated by discovering at least one novel reward exit. Children's prioritisation of social information is consistent with theories of cultural evolution indicating imitation is a prepotent response following observation of behaviour, and that innovation is a rarity; so much so, that even maladaptive behaviour is copied.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Imitate or innovate? Children’s innovation is influenced by the efficacy of observed behaviour

2015

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“…Context also affects biases toward copying models belonging to a particular group, 290 such as an age group. One-and two-year-olds generally imitate spontaneous behaviour 291 exhibited by adults more than peers, but the context affects this replication, such that early childhood; four-to five-year-old children imitate adults more than children and same 297 age peers when an action is novel, but copy a peer over an older child and adult when the action is not novel (Zmyj et al, 2011).…”

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confidence: 99%

Whom do children copy? Model-based biases in social learning

Wood

Kendal

Flynn

2013

Developmental Review

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Publisher's copyright statement: NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Developmental Review. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A denitive version was subsequently published in Developmental Review, 33, 4, December 2013, 10.1016/j.dr.2013.002. Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. to the frequency at which they are practiced (Rendell et al., 2011). 15The adaptive value of model-based biases have been investigated in disciplines such 16 as evolutionary biology, anthropology and non-developmental domains of psychology. 17Model-based biases have been described as "who" biases (Laland, 2004) In this section we make five propositions regarding the adaptive value of model-based biases. 54To begin, we examine children"s biases towards models whose behaviour indicates their 55 desire to transfer information, namely children"s receptiveness to pedagogical cueing. 2 for instances where this does not happen). indicating that children may select information from those more genetically related to them. 140Familiarity is a confound to this interpretation, yet familiarity itself can be a marker of in- the history of the stranger is unknown and, therefore, the information they provide may not 150 be relevant for the child"s particular environment. they stated that they "liked" rather than peers they stated that they did "not like". Likewise, 200McGuigan (2013) found that the higher the status of the model (the child"s head teacher 201 versus a known researcher) the greater the number of irrelevant actions were copied. 202Whether a model is observed by others may, in itself, be a marker of prestige; four-203 year-old children use bystanders" silent reactions to models such that a model who was 204"endorsed" by bystanders through nods and smiles was copied more for labelling novel biased copying from prestigious models is, in some circumstances, limited to behaviour

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“…The second related issue is that young children may struggle to differentiate the subtle (Wood, Kendal & Flynn, 2013a). …”

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Does a peer model’s task proficiency influence children’s solution choice and innovation?

Wood

Kendal

Flynn

2015

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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. (2015) 'Does a peer model's task prociency inuence children's solution choice and innovation?', Journal of experimental child psychology., 139 . pp. 190-202. Further information on publisher's website:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.06.003Publisher's copyright statement: NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A denitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 139, November 2015, 10.1016/j.jecp.2015.06.003. Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details.

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Copy me or copy you? The effect of prior experience on social learning

Cited by 62 publications

References 53 publications

Imitate or innovate? Children’s innovation is influenced by the efficacy of observed behaviour

Imitate or innovate? Children’s innovation is influenced by the efficacy of observed behaviour

Whom do children copy? Model-based biases in social learning

Does a peer model’s task proficiency influence children’s solution choice and innovation?

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