Infant imitation in a third-party context
The present study examined 17-month-olds’ imitation in a third-party context. In four experiments, the infants watched while a reliable or an unreliable model demonstrated a novel action with an unfamiliar (Experiments 1 and 3) or a familiar (Experiments 2 and 4) object to another adult. In Experiments 3 and 4, the second adult imitated the model’s novel action. Neither the familiarity of the object or whether or not the second adult copied the model’s behavior influenced the likelihood of infant imitation. Findings showed that the infants in the reliable model condition were more willing to imitate the model’s action with the unfamiliar object. The results suggest that infants take into account the reliability of a model even when the model has not directly demonstrated her reliability to the infant.
Article outline
- The present research
- General method
- Experiment 1. Unfamiliar object – no imitation
- Method
- Participants
- Experimental conditions
- Demonstration phase
- Test phase
- Set-up and materials
- Procedure
- Coding and reliability
- Manipulation checks
- Measures of infant variables
- Demonstration phase
- Test phase
- Results
- Discussion
- Experiment 2. Familiar object – no imitation
- Method
- Participants
- Experimental conditions
- Set-up and materials
- Procedure
- Coding and reliability
- Manipulation checks
- Measures of infant variables
- Demonstration phase
- Test phase
- Results
- Discussion
- Experiment 1 vs. Experiment 2
- Experiment 3. Unfamiliar object – with imitation
- Method
- Participants
- Experimental conditions
- Set-up and materials
- Procedure
- Coding and reliability
- Manipulation checks
- Measures of infant variables
- Demonstration phase
- Test phase
- Results
- Discussion
- Experiment 4. Familiar object – with imitation
- Method
- Participants
- Experimental conditions
- Set-up and materials
- Procedure
- Coding and reliability
- Manipulation checks
- Measures of infant variables
- Demonstration phase
- Test phase
- Results
- Discussion
- Experiment 3 vs. Experiment 4
- Experiment 1 vs. Experiment 3, Experiment 2 vs. Experiment 4
- General discussion
- Acknowledgements
-
References
References (26)
References
Akhtar, N., Jipson, J., & Callanan, M. A. (2001). Learning words through overhearing. Child Development, 72(2), 416–430. 

Barr, R., Rovee-Collier, C., & Campanella, J. (2005). Retrieval protracts deferred imitation by 6-month-olds. Infancy, 7(3), 263–283. 

Brooker, I., & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2013). Is a bird an apple? The effect of speaker labeling accuracy on infants’ word learning, imitation, and helping behaviors. Infancy, 18(S1), E46–E68. 

Brugger, A., Lariviere, L. A., Mumme, D. L., & Bushnell, E. W. (2007). Doing the right thing: Infants’ selection of actions to imitate from observed event sequences. Child Development, 78(3), 806–824. 

Clément, F., Koenig, M., & Harris, P. (2004). The ontogenesis of trust. Mind and Language, 19(4), 360–379. 

Floor, P., & Akhtar, N. (2006). Can 18-month-old infants learn words by listening in on conversations? Infancy, 9(3), 327–339. 

Gampe, A., Liebal, K., & Tomasello, M. (2012). Eighteen-month-olds learn novel words through overhearing. First Language, 32(3), 385–397. 

Haun, D. B. M., Rekers, Y., & Tomasello, M. (2014). Children conform to the behavior of peers; Other great apes stick with what they know. Psychological Science, 25(12), 2160–2167. 

Haun, D. B. M., Rekers, Y., & Tomasello, M. (2012). Majority biased transmission in chimpanzees and human children, but not orangutans. Current Biology, 22(8), 727–731. 

Herold, K. H., & Akhtar, N. (2008). Imitative learning from a third-party interaction: Relations with self-recognition and perspective taking. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 101(2), 114–123. 

Király, I., Csibra, G., & Gergely, G. (2013). Beyond rational imitation: Learning arbitrary means actions from communicative demonstrations. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 116(2), 471–486. 

Krogh-Jespersen, S., & Echols, C. H. (2012). The influence of speaker reliability on first versus second label learning. Child Development, 83(2), 581–590. 

Matheson, H., Moore, C., & Akhtar, N. (2013). The development of social learning in interactive and observational contexts. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 114(2), 161–172. 

Meltzoff, A. N. (1988). Infant imitation and memory: Nine-month-olds in immediate and deferred tests. Child Development, 59(1), 217–225. 

Nielsen, M. (2006). Copying actions and copying outcomes: Social learning through the second year. Developmental Psychology, 42(3), 555–565. 

Nielsen, M., & Blank, C. (2011). Imitation in young children: When who gets copied is more important than what gets copied. Developmental Psychology, 47(4), 1050–1053. 

Nielsen, M., Moore, C., & Mohamedally, J. (2012). Young children overimitate in third-party contexts. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 112(1), 73–83. 

Over, H., & Carpenter, M. (2015). Children infer affiliative and status relations from watching others imitate. Developmental Science, 18(6), 917–925. 

Poulin-Dubois, D., Brooker, I., & Polonia, A. (2011). Infants prefer to imitate a reliable person. Infant Behavior and Development, 34(2), 303–309. 

Repacholi, B. M., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2007). Emotional eavesdropping: Infants selectively respond to indirect emotional signals. Child Development, 78(2), 503–521. 

Seehagen, S., & Herbert, J. S. (2012). Selective imitation in 6-month-olds: The role of the social and physical context. Infant Behavior and Development, 35(3), 509–512. 

Shimpi, P. M., Akhtar, N., & Moore, C. (2013). Toddlers’ imitative learning in interactive and observational contexts: the role of age and familiarity of the model. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 116(2), 309–323. 

Shneidman, L., Todd, R., & Woodward, A. L. (2014). Why do directed interactions support imitative learning in young children? PLoS ONE, 9(10). 

Stenberg, G. (2013). Do 12-month-old infants trust a competent adult? Infancy, 18(5), 873–904. 

Zmyj, N., Buttelmann, D., Carpenter, M., & Daum, M. M. (2010). The reliability of a model influences 14-month-olds’ imitation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 106(4), 208–220. 

Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Thiele, Maleen, Steven Kalinke, Christine Michel & Daniel B. M. Haun
2023.
Direct and Observed Joint Attention Modulate 9-Month-Old Infants’ Object Encoding.
Open Mind 7
► pp. 917 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.