RE: [xmca] "overimitation" ref

[Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>]

Interesting that we describe what children do with these trick boxes as 'overimitation' as if the sole purpose of imitation were just to get a reward. As the first of the youtube videos points out, children, unlike other apes, have learned to expect adults to adjust what they do to fit the child's interests (this pedagogical orientation seems to be uniquely human, though I remember seeing a film of meerkats apparently 'scaffolding' digging out food, setting up young to finish off the job). Given this expectation, and in the social context of interaction with an unfamiliar adult, it is not surprising that children should 'be on their best behaviour' or 'hypervigilant' in their efforts to go along with a stranger's funny ways. It would be interesting to see if similar results would be obtained if the set up was conducted by a familiar adult in familiar surroundings (and with familiar gear).

It seems to me that overimitation would be a necessary feature of Vygotsky's model of internalisation of social activity - children do what adults do before they know WHY adults do it (and indeed we all do many things without necessarily being absolutely clear about why we do them, other than that people might be offended if we didn't). In many cases adults will insist on overimitation - say 'please', say grace before a meal, brush your teeth before you go to bed etc. etc.. One of my personal horrors is 'communication training' for children with learning difficulties - involving insistence that the child presents a token before a reward is handed over, even though child and adult both know that the adult already knows exactly what the child wants).

All the best,

Rod

________________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole [lchcmike@gmail.com]
Sent: 06 February 2010 18:47
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] "overimitation" ref

Good addition to the paper. Probably same experimenters.
mike

On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com> wrote:

> Two more videos on overimitation, a black box/clear box experiment that
> shows children are more likely to overimitate than chimps.
>
>  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIAoJsS9Ix8
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHuagL7x5Wc&feature=related
>
> - Steve
>
>
>
>
>
> On Feb 6, 2010, at 7:46 AM, mike cole wrote:
>
>  Found it:  http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2007/11/27/0704452104.DC1
>>
>> mike
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