When learning from others, human children tend to faithfully copy--or "overimitate"--the actions of a demonstrator, even when these actions are irrelevant for solving the task at hand. We investigate whether domesticated dogs ("Canis familiaris") and dingoes ("Canis dingo") share this tendency to overimitate in three…

The aim of the article is to investigate, in the light of the emphasis laid on scaling by UNESCO (UNESCO, 2014a), how subjectification of those involved in educational innovations both enables and constricts scaling understood as a learning process. This is carried out through a case study of the Alforja Educativa, an educational project in…

Educational agents (including animal companions) are a kind of interface agent, which is a significant component in educational systems, and has great impacts on student learning. However, with the development of emerging technologies (e.g., tangible technology), few studies have yet investigated how tangible technology can be used to combine with…

Semantic knowledge can be extended in a variety of ways, including self-generation of new facts through integration of separate yet related episodes. We sought to promote integration and self-generation by providing "hints" to help 6-year-olds (Experiment 1) and 4-year-olds (Experiment 2) see the relevance of separate episodes to one…

Cultural transmission is often viewed as a domain-general process. However, a growing literature suggests that learnability is influenced by content and context. The idea of a learnability landscape is introduced as a way of representing the effects of interacting factors on how easily information is acquired. Extending prior work (Barrett &…

Autism is currently one of the most prominent and widely discussed human conditions. Its increased prevalence has intensified the demand for effective educational and therapeutic services, and intervention science is providing mounting evidence about practices that positively impact outcomes. The purpose of this report is to describe a set of…

Using a sociocultural framework to approach intergenerational learning, this inquiry examines learning processes used by families during visits to one nature center. Data were collected from videotaped observations of families participating in an environmental education program and a follow-up task to draw the habitat of raptors. Based on a…

In the first of two experiments, we demonstrate the spread of a novel form of tool use across 20 "cultural generations" of child-to-child transmission. An experimentally seeded technique spread with 100% fidelity along twice as many "generations" as has been investigated in recent exploratory "diffusion" experiments of this type. This contrasted…

Asking how we can best support the health and well-being of infants and children in an era of rapid economic and technological change, this book presents findings on human development as both an individual and a population phenomenon. Topics discussed include links between socioeconomic status, achievement, and health; the impact of early…