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Article published In: Interaction Studies
Vol. 24:3 (2023) ► pp.464–483

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Infants’ imitative learning from third-party observations

The role of the second adult

 | Uppsala University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Uppsala University.

Published online: 15 February 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/is.20024.ste
Abstract
In two separate experiments, we examined 17-month-olds’ imitation in a third-party context. The aim was to explore how seeing another person responding to a model’s novel action influenced infant imitation. The infants watched while a reliable model demonstrated a novel action with a familiar (Experiment 1) or an unfamiliar (Experiment 2) object to a second actor. The second actor either imitated or did not imitate the novel action of the model. Fewer infants imitated the model’s novel behavior in the non-imitation condition than in the imitation condition in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, infants’ likelihood of imitating was not influenced by whether they had watched the second actor imitating the model’s novel action with the unfamiliar object. The findings indicate that infants take into account a second adult’s actions in a third party context when infants receive information that contradicts their existing knowledge and when it corresponds with their own experiences. If infants do not have prior knowledge about how to handle a certain object, then the second adult’s actions do not seem to matter.
Article outline
  • The current experiments
  • Experiment 1
    • 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 2
    • 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
  • General discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (24)
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