The role of social interaction and pedagogical cues for eliciting and reducing overimitation in preschoolers

Contrasting Social and Cognitive Accounts on Overimitation: The Role of Causal Transparency and Prior Experiences

“…However, most overimitation studies (for an exception see, e.g., Gardiner, ) used an opaque reward location to ensure that children could not see the reward before retrieving it (e.g., Berl & Hewlett, ; Hoehl et al., ; Horner & Whiten, ; McGuigan et al., ; Nielsen, Tomaselli, Mushin, & Whiten, ). In some studies the container itself was entirely opaque and nonfunctional actions were performed on the outside (e.g., Nielsen & Blank, ; Nielsen & Tomaselli, ).…”

“…To investigate how the visibility of the reward affects children's imitation of nonfunctional actions, we used a task originally introduced by Hoehl et al. () but exchanged the opaque tube containing the rewards for a transparent tube. As long as the tube is opaque, children cannot see the crucial event—how the tool, that is inserted into the tube, connects with the reward.…”

“…After observing the model, children (McGuigan & Whiten, ; Nielsen & Tomaselli, ) as well as adults (Flynn & Smith, ; McGuigan et al., ) tend to copy both functional actions (e.g., opening a lid to retrieve a reward) as well as nonfunctional actions (e.g., tapping on the box before opening it). Crucially, nonfunctional actions are not performed when participants operate the container without prior demonstration (e.g., Hoehl, Zettersten, Schleihauf, Grätz, & Pauen, ; Lyons, Damrosch, Lin, Macris, & Keil, ; Lyons et al., ).…”

“…In addition, the findings of Hoehl et al. () suggested that actions not performed directly on the testing object containing the reward (e.g., clapping) were imitated less frequently than actions performed on the container. Thus, actions that cannot possibly have a causal effect on the retrieval of a reward were often omitted.…”

The perpetuation of ritualistic actions as revealed by young children's transmission of normative behavior

“…Overimitation might therefore arise because children are responding to the cues of a person who they assume is teaching them something important, kind-relevant and generalizable (Hoehl, Zettersten, Schleihauf, Gratz, & Pauen, 2014). If children interpret the redundant actions employed in overimitation tasks as ritualized behavior, indicating something akin to "this is how we do it here", causally redundant actions…”