Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T19:11:59.404Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Revisiting an extant framework: Concerns about culture and task generalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2022

Frankie T. K. Fong
Affiliation:
Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany [email protected] https://www.eva.mpg.de/comparative-cultural-psychology/staff/frankie-fong/ Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia [email protected] https://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/1104
Mark Nielsen
Affiliation:
Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia [email protected] https://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/1104 Faculty of Humanities, The University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg 2092, South Africa
Cristine H. Legare
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Center for Applied Cognitive Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA [email protected] http://cristinelegare.com

Abstract

The target article elaborates upon an extant theoretical framework, “Imitation and Innovation: The Dual Engines of Cultural Learning.” We raise three major concerns: (1) There is limited discussion of cross-cultural universality and variation; (2) overgeneralization of overimitation and omission of other social learning types; and (3) selective imitation in infants and toddlers is not discussed.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berl, R. E. W., & Hewlett, B. S. (2015). Cultural variation in the use of overimitation by the Aka and Ngandu of the Congo Basin. PLoS ONE, 10(3), e0120180. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0120180CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boyette, A. H., & Lew-Levy, S. (2020). Socialization, autonomy, and cooperation: Insights from task assignment among the egalitarian BaYaka. Ethos, 48(3), e0120180, 400418. https://doi.org/10.1111/etho.12284CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buttelmann, D., Zmyj, N., Daum, M., & Carpenter, M. (2013). Selective imitation of in-group over out-group members in 14-month-old infants. Child Development, 84(2), 422428. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01860.xCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carpenter, M., & Call, J. (2009). Comparing the imitative skills of children and nonhuman apes. Revue de Primatologie, 5(1), 117. https://doi.org/10.4000/primatologie.263Google Scholar
Clegg, J. M., & Legare, C. H. (2016). A cross-cultural comparison of children's imitative flexibility. Developmental Psychology, 52(9), 14351444. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000131CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clegg, J. M., Wen, N. J., & Legare, C. H. (2017). Is non-conformity weird? Cultural variation in adults’ beliefs about children's competency and conformity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(3), 428441. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000275CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corriveau, K. H., DiYanni, C. J., Clegg, J. M., Min, G., Chin, J., & Nasrini, J. (2017). Cultural differences in the imitation and transmission of inefficient actions. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 161, 118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.03.002CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dickerson, K., Gerhardstein, P., Zack, E., & Barr, R. (2012). Age-related changes in learning across early childhood: A new imitation task. Developmental Psychobiology, 55(7), 719732. https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.21068Google ScholarPubMed
DiYanni, C. J., Corriveau, K. H., Kurkul, K., Nasrini, J., & Nini, D. (2015). The role of consensus and culture in children's imitation of inefficient actions. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 137, 99110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.04.004CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fong, F. T. K., Imuta, K., Redshaw, J., & Nielsen, M. (2021a). The digital social partner: Preschool children display stronger imitative tendency in screen-based than live learning. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 3(4), 585594. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.280CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fong, F. T. K., Imuta, K., Redshaw, J., & Nielsen, M. (2021b). When efficiency attenuates imitation in preschool children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 39(2), 330337. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12366CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fong, F. T. K., Sommer, K., Redshaw, J., Kang, J., & Nielsen, M. (2021c). The man and the machine: Do children learn from and transmit tool-use knowledge acquired from a robot in ways that are comparable to a human model? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 208, 105148. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105148CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gergely, G., Bekkering, H., & Király, I. (2002). Developmental psychology: Rational imitation in preverbal infants. Nature, 415(6873), 755755. https://doi.org/10.1038/415755aCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gergely, G., & Csibra, G. (2006). Sylvia's recipe: The role of imitation and pedagogy in the transmission of cultural knowledge. In Enfield, N. J. & Levenson, S. C. (Eds.), Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition, and human interaction (pp. 229255). Berg. http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/storage/advfy/documents/sbhc5.pdfGoogle Scholar
Herrmann, P. A., Legare, C. H., Harris, P. L., & Whitehouse, H. (2013). Stick to the script: The effect of witnessing multiple actors on children's imitation. Cognition, 129(3), 536543. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2013.08.010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard, L. H., Henderson, A. M. E., Carrazza, C., & Woodward, A. L. (2015). Infants’ and young children's imitation of linguistic in-group and out-group informants. Child Development, 86(1), 259275. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12299CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legare, C. H. (2017). Cumulative cultural learning: Development and diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114(30), 78777883. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1620743114CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Legare, C. H., & Nielsen, M. (2015). Imitation and innovation: The dual engines of cultural learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19(11), 688699. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2015.08.005CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Legare, C. H., Wen, N. J., Herrmann, P. A., & Whitehouse, H. (2015). Imitative flexibility and the development of cultural learning. Cognition, 142, 351361. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.05.020CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lew-Levy, S., Kissler, S. M., Boyette, A. H., Crittenden, A. N., Mabulla, I. A., & Hewlett, B. S. (2020). Who teaches children to forage? Exploring the primacy of child-to-child teaching among Hadza and BaYaka hunter–gatherers of Tanzania and Congo. Evolution and Human Behavior, 41(1), 1222. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2019.07.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liszkai-Peres, K., Kampis, D., & Király, I. (2021). The flexibility of early memories: Limited reevaluation of action steps in 2-year-old infants. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 203, 105046.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meltzoff, A. N. (1995). Understanding the intentions of others: Re-enactment of intended acts by 18-month-old children. Developmental Psychology, 31(5), 838.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nielsen, M. (2006). Copying actions and copying outcomes: social learning through the second year. Developmental Psychology, 42(3), 555.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nielsen, M., Tomaselli, K., & Kapitány, R. (2018). The influence of goal demotion on children's reproduction of ritual behavior. Evolution and Human Behavior, 39(3), 27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.02.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Over, H., & Carpenter, M. (2012). Putting the social into social learning: Explaining both selectivity and fidelity in children's copying behavior. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 126(2), 182192. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024555CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schillaci, R. S., & Kelemen, D. (2014). Children's conformity when acquiring novel conventions: The case of artifacts. Journal of Cognition and Development, 15(4), 569583. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2013.784973CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sommer, K., Redshaw, J., Slaughter, V., Wiles, J., & Nielsen, M. (2021). The early ontogeny of infants’ imitation of on screen humans and robots. Infant Behavior and Development, 64, 101614. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101614CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stengelin, R., Hepach, R., & Haun, D. B. M. (2020). Cross-cultural variation in how much, but not whether, children overimitate. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 193, 104796. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104796CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strouse, G. A., & Troseth, G. L. (2008). “Don't try this at home”: Toddlers’ imitation of new skills from people on video. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 101(4), 262280. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2008.05.010CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williamson, R. A., Meltzoff, A. N., & Markman, E. M. (2008). Prior experiences and perceived efficacy influence 3-year-olds’ imitation. Developmental Psychology, 44(1), 275285. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.44.1.275CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Woodward, A. L. (1998). Infants selectively encode the goal object of an actor's reach. Cognition, 69(1), 134. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(98)00058-4CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed