Dissecting children’s observational learning of complex actions through selective video displays

Abstract

Publisher'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 re ected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A de nitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 116, 2, October 2013, 10.1016/j.jecp.2013.06.001. 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-pro t 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.

Unselective Overimitators: The Evolutionary Implications of Children's Indiscriminate Copying of Successful and Prestigious Models

“…When children see live demonstrations of very simple tasks, it is not uncommon to see more than 80% of children overimitate (e.g., Kenward et al., ; Lyons et al., ; Nielsen & Tomaselli, ). Imitation rates similar to our participants' are observed when children face more complex devices (e.g., Lyons et al., , Dome & Cage devices) or relatively information‐sparse video demonstrations (e.g., McGuigan, Whiten, Flynn, & Horner, ), even when they are imitating causally relevant actions (Flynn & Whiten, ). These differences are plausibly the result of variable task difficulty: how easily a child can see what the model is doing, how many steps are performed and how hard it is to remember them, how much time elapses between demonstration and testing, and so on.…”

Becoming a high‐fidelity – super – imitator: what are the contributions of social and individual learning?

“…Exactly what is associated with these developmental changes in this potentially unique feature of human social learning is the subject of significant debate (Nielsen et al, 2012), but relatively limited empirical research. Surprisingly few studies have systematically examined age-related changes in preschoolers' imitation fidelity (Bauer, Wiebe, Carver, Waters & Nelson, 2003;Dickerson et al, 2013;Flynn & Whiten, 2013;Williams, Casey, Braadbaart, Culmer & Mon-Williams, 2014;Young et al, 2011). Existing studies, however, have not examined whether increases in fidelity are related to other learning mechanisms and whether there are domain-general or domain-specific effects.…”

They can interact, but can they learn? Toddlers’ transfer learning from touchscreens and television

“…To do this, we relied on a body of literature that has examined the development of social learning strategies (Flynn & Whiten, 2013;Huang & Charman, 2005;Nielsen, 2006;Tennie, Greve, Gretscher, & Call, 2010;Want & Harris, 2002;Whiten, McGuigan, Marshall-Pescini, & Hopper, 2009). Action emulation, the reproduction of actions in the absence of goal-directed behavior, is characteristic of early development; goal emulation, the reproduction of the goals of the task without precise copying of the actions, is more apparent during later development (Tennie, Call, & Tomasello, 2006;Want & Harris, 2002).…”

“…Learning from video not only requires the learner to transfer information between dimensions (far transfer: 2D-3D) but also provides diminished perceptual features and lacks socially contingent information known to foster learning (see Flynn & Whiten, 2013;Goldstein, King, & West, 2003;Gros-Louis, West, Goldstein, & King, 2006;Hopper, Flynn, Wood, & Whiten, 2010;Nielsen, 2006;Nielsen et al, 2008;Tennie et al, 2006). Indeed, the demonstrator is 3D and ''live'' in a touchscreen demonstration but not in a video.…”