The Elicited Imitation Task (EIT) is a popular technique for efficiently measuring global proficiency in multiple languages, and accumulated evidence indicates high reliability and strong relationships with other proficiency measures. Nevertheless, several dimensions of EIT design remain open to investigation, including the assumption that a pause…

The Topic Hypothesis posits that Chinese language learners progress through a developmental sequence comprising five stages (Gao, 2009; Wang, 2011), which includes the Object-Subject-Verb (OSV) structure at stage 4 and the ba-construct at stage 5. According to this hypothesis, learners typically master the OSV structure before acquiring the…

This study investigated the interactions among different cognitive abilities, linguistic structures, and the efficacy of different corrective feedback (CF) types. The cognitive abilities examined were declarative and procedural memory. The target linguistic structures were English regular and irregular past tense forms. In terms of the…

Fourteen-month-olds selectively imitated a sub-efficient means (illuminating a lightbox by a head-touch) when this was modeled by linguistic ingroup members in video-demonstrations. A follow-up study with slightly older infants, however, could replicate this effect only in a video-demonstration context. Hence it still remains unclear whether…

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…

This study examined the effect of a "ghost" demonstration on toddlers' imitation. In the "ghost" condition, virtual pieces moved to make a fish or boat puzzle. Fifty-two 2.5- and 3-year-olds were tested on a touchscreen (no transfer) or with 3D pieces (transfer); children tested with 3D pieces scored above a no demonstration…

In contrast to other primates, human children's imitation performance goes from low to high fidelity soon after infancy. Are such changes associated with the development of other forms of learning? We addressed this question by testing 215 children (26-59 months) on two social conditions (imitation, emulation)--involving a demonstration--and two…

Past research has shown that children will copy the actions of adults with high fidelity, even actions that are obviously causally irrelevant to the modelled outcome. However, this phenomenon has always been documented in cases where a clear functional outcome has been brought about (e.g. getting a box open to retrieve a toy). Here, we demonstrate…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between tasks that require delayed discriminations such as delayed imitation and delayed matching to sample on acquisition of skills using video modeling. Twenty-nine participants with an ASD diagnosis were assessed on a battery of tasks including both immediate and delayed imitation and…

The present study tests whether presenting video modeling examples from the learner's (first-person) perspective promotes learning of an assembly task, compared to presenting video examples from a third-person perspective. Across 2 experiments conducted in different labs, university students viewed a video showing how to assemble an 8-component…

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…

We explored whether a rising trend to blindly "overcopy" a model's causally irrelevant actions between 3 and 5 years of age, found in previous studies, predicts a more circumspect disposition in much younger children. Children between 23 and 30 months of age observed a model use a tool to retrieve a reward from either a transparent or opaque…