Yes, please Jay: do. The discussion on *Cultural Psychology* has kept the
list unusually active through this summer, but I suspect that MANY people
have missed lots of it for the same reasons that you have had, i.e.1) being
away and 2) not getting hold of the book until far into the discussion. At
least I'm sure that many of us have missed the opportunity to contribute
actively for these kinds of reasons.
=46or example, I'm in the middle of the "phylogenetic" chapter, trying to
think straight about Mike Tomasello's distinction between 'imitation' and
'emulation'. For those of you who haven't been there recently, Tomasello
et al. basically argue that chimps (et al.) learn by _emulating_ the
behavior of others, i.e. they observe some new means used towards a
desirable end, and then pick up similar means working their own way towards
accomplishing the task. _Imitation_ in Tomasello's version consists in
observing and copying the _methods_ of the more skilled individual as well
as the means.
Somehow this move of introducing a distinction (between two senses of
'imitation') disturbs me. Perhaps it's simply that, naturally, people, too,
do a lot of learning by emulation: it's a kind of creative and
non-authoritarian way of learning... I don't like to get it portrayed as
inferior! It also disturbs me that it re-constitutes a single-quality gap
between us humans and all the rest.
On the other hand: SO WHAT? If there is an observable difference in
learning behavior, if apes really don't observe the methods of their elders
but kids do, then this clue to the greater resistance to "cultural erosion"
in humans should not be disregarded.
Anybody else stumbled on these stones?
Eva
eva.ekeblad who-is-at ped.gu.se