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

Abstract

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.

Young children copy cumulative technological design in the absence of action information

“…Support for this thought comes from our finding that participants in our demo conditions were not able to go beyond the height of the demonstrated tripod and that only one participant (in the endstate-only demo condition) built a level-4-tripod. Furthermore, research on innovation in children demonstrated surprisingly low innovation rates with regard to making tools 67 or inventing strategies to retrieve more rewards from a puzzle-box 68 : Children well into their primary school years seem to struggle with inventing (better) solutions to new tasks. This might imply that groups of young children might not yet be able to show a ratchet effect as continuing limitations on their ability to innovate represents a critical bottleneck for the development of a capacity for producing culture-dependent traits [see also refs 69 and 70].…”

Imitation and Innovation: The Dual Engines of Cultural Learning

“…These studies suggest a lack of sophistication in tool innovation in young children and a reliance on being shown task solutions by adults [86]. One possibility is that innovation requires didactic pedagogy and scaffolding from others.…”

To Copy or To Innovate? The Role of Personality and Social Networks in Children's Learning Strategies

“…The ontogeny of tool use is of interest because tool use characterizes all human environments, is fundamental to cumulative culture, and is learned early. Children are excellent social learners , but they find solving innovation challenges difficult asocially, especially in early childhood, with most children under age 8 failing innovation challenges .…”