The development of social learning in interactive and observational contexts

From the first year of life, imitative learning readily occurs in contexts where a demonstrator directly interacts with infants (i.e., “interactive contexts”), and at least by 18 months, imitation will also occur in third-party or observational contexts where infants witness a demonstration by another person that is not directed at them. However, it remains unclear whether imitation is differentially facilitated in these two contexts in young children. In the current experiment, we tested both imitation and emulation learning in younger (18 months) and older (24 months) infants in three different social learning conditions: interactive, social observational, and solitary observational. We found that the younger group imitated novel actions more after interactive demonstration than after solitary observational demonstration; older infants imitated equally in all conditions. Emulation occurred equally in all conditions for the younger group, but the older group emulated significantly less in the interactive condition than in the solitary observational condition. Furthermore, we found that mirror self-recognition was related to imitation in the solitary observational condition. These results suggest that imitation is initially facilitated by direct interaction but that by the end of the second year can occur just as easily in noninteractive contexts. This change may be dependent on developments in social cognition, in particular, the understanding of self–other equivalence.

► It remains unclear whether imitation is differentially facilitated in third party contexts.
► 18-month-olds imitated more after interactive context than third-party or solitary.
► 24-month-olds imitated equally in third-party, interactive, and solitary conditions.
► At the end of the second year imitation can occur in noninteractive contexts.