DOI: 10.6129/CJP.20150723
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2015, Vol.57, No.3, 213-227
The Influences of Prior Intention and Causal Understanding on Preschoolers’ Observational Learning from Others’ Mistakes
Wan-Ling Chung（Department of Psychology, National Chengchi University）；Chi-Tai Huang（Department of Psychology, National Chengchi University；Research Center for Mind, Brain and Learning, National Chengchi University）
Abstract
Previous research has shown that 3-year-old children benefit from observing a model’s failure to retrieve a reward in a trap-tube task before they are shown a correct solution (Want & Harris, 2001). In this study, we investigated whether the tendency to benefit from mistakes is influenced by the availability of causal information or the model’s intention. In two demonstration conditions, 30- and 41-month-old children (N = 116) observed an experimenter trap the reward before demonstrating how to obtain it with a tool from either a clear or an opaque tube. The clear tube made the causal properties of the task visible, whereas the opaque tube prevented them from being seen. In two other conditions, children were allowed to explore the task spontaneously or watched the experimenter manipulate the tool using actions irrelevant to retrieving the reward. Results indicated that both 30- and 41-month-old children imitated the demonstrated tool use regardless of the transparency of the task, but they did not show a bias in favor of the correct solution. However, when considering overall performance (reward retrieval achieved via both imitative and emulative strategies), 41-montholds were successful in retrieving, as opposed to trapping, the reward in the opaque condition. The facilitating effect of observing others’ mistakes is unlikely to be due solely to prior intention or causal understanding. We suggest that children flexibly vary the strategy they used to reproduce a model’s actions and action outcomes depending on what they perceive as relevant in the situation of the task.
Keywords: tool use, prior intention, imitation, mistake, observational learning
