Precision Of Imitation

Precision of Imitation

Abstract

The authors of this article argue that imitation is an adaptive learning behavior in children, in that children will mimic a demonstrator better after understanding the rational for the actions presented. As the task level of difficulty is raised, some of the critical elements of the task are lost. The authors used children from a university nursery school and a research assistant that was uninformed of the authors' hypothesis. The authors propose that children go off their understanding of a task to guide how they reproduce the actions that are demonstrated to them.

Rebecca Williamson and Ellen Markman of Stanford University conducted an experiment to support their hypothesis that children use imitation as a means to learn and that the more difficult the task the more the children will make up to compensate for their underdeveloped memory capacity. According to Williamson and Marksman's' theory, when a task is given to a child and it is simple the child can mimic the task in the exact manner used in the demonstration. However, when a child tries to mimic a more sophisticated task the child cannot remember all the details to perform the task. As a result the child copies the actions of the task but only the critical elements of that task. If a child is given the task to pick up a penny with only their two pinky fingers, the exact movement is abandoned for the more rudimentary goal of just picking up the penny. In contrast, when the child sees the simpler demonstration of the action to pick up the penny, more of the detail of picking up the penny can be remembered and reproduced, even the particular movements by the demonstrator.

Method

Participants

Participants were 25 students of a university nursery school, with approximate even number of girls and boys. The children were largely white, but with a mixture of Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American children as well. Average age of the children is 3 years and 8 months.

Materials

Materials used were three sets of four objects that were fairly unfamiliar to the children. The first set was cylindrical objects, the second disk-shaped objects and the third set was cup-shaped objects. All objects were in different colours from one another and were presented to the children on silver trays. The experiment was conducted on a plastic play mat. Each child was sent individually to a playroom at their preschool where a camcorder was present to document the experiment.

Procedure

The children were presented with the objects and were given a demonstration of a task to mimic with the given objects. Four different studies were conducted. The first was designed to compare the children's ability to mimic a demonstrator when there was a clear reason for the given action and no obvious goals.

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