The hidden structure of overimitation
Yale University · University of Wisconsin–Madison
Abstract
Young children are surprisingly judicious imitators, but there are also times when their reproduction of others' actions appears strikingly illogical. For example, children who observe an adult inefficiently operating a novel object frequently engage in what we term overimitation, persistently reproducing the adult's unnecessary actions. Although children readily overimitate irrelevant actions that even chimpanzees ignore, this curious effect has previously attracted little interest; it has been assumed that children overimitate not for theoretically significant reasons, but rather as a purely social exercise. In this paper, however, we challenge this view, presenting evidence that overimitation reflects a…
Citation impact
- FWCI
- 15.64
- Percentile
- 100%
- References
- 37
Authors
3Topics & keywords
- Object (grammar)
- Encoding (memory)
- Cognitive psychology
- Representation (politics)
- Causal structure
- Psychology
- Process (computing)
- Cognition