Becoming a high-fidelity – <I>super</I> – imitator: what are the contributions of social and individual learning?

dc.contributor.authorSubiaul, Francys
dc.contributor.authorPatterson, Eric M.
dc.contributor.authorSchilder, Brian
dc.contributor.authorRenner, Elizabeth
dc.contributor.authorBarr, Rachel
dc.date.accessioned2015-04-20T15:15:17Z
dc.date.available2015-04-20T15:15:17Z
dc.date.issued2015
dc.description.abstractIn contrast to other primates, human children&#39;s imitation performance goes from low to high fidelity soon after infancy. Are such changes associated with the development of other forms of learning? We addressed this question by testing 215 children (26–59 months) on two social conditions (imitation, emulation) – involving a demonstration – and two asocial conditions (trial-and-error, recall) – involving individual learning – using two touchscreen tasks. The tasks required responding to either three different pictures in a specific picture order (Cognitive: Airplane?Ball?Cow) or three identical pictures in a specific spatial order (Motor-Spatial: Up?Down?Right). There were age-related improvements across all conditions and imitation, emulation and recall performance were significantly better than trial-and-error learning. Generalized linear models demonstrated that motor-spatial imitation fidelity was associated with age and motor-spatial emulation performance, but cognitive imitation fidelity was only associated with age. While this study provides evidence for multiple imitation mechanisms, the development of one of those mechanisms – motor-spatial imitation – may be bootstrapped by the development of another social learning skill – motor-spatial emulation. Together, these findings provide important clues about the development of imitation, which is arguably a distinctive feature of the human species.
dc.format.extent1025–1035
dc.identifier1467-7687
dc.identifier.citationSubiaul, Francys, Patterson, Eric M., Schilder, Brian, Renner, Elizabeth, and Barr, Rachel. 2015. "Becoming a high-fidelity – <I>super</I> – imitator: what are the contributions of social and individual learning?" <em>Developmental Science</em>, 18, (6) 1025–1035. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12276">https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12276</a>.
dc.identifier.issn1467-7687
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10088/25166
dc.publisherWiley-Blackwell
dc.relation.ispartofDevelopmental Science 18 (6)
dc.titleBecoming a high-fidelity – <I>super</I> – imitator: what are the contributions of social and individual learning?
dc.typearticle
sro.description.unitNZP
sro.identifier.doi10.1111/desc.12276
sro.identifier.itemID133402
sro.identifier.refworksID88249
sro.publicationPlaceHoboken

Files

Collections