TY - JOUR A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Pfeifer, Caroline T1 - Movement or goal Goal salience and verbal cues affect preschoolers' imitation of action components JF - Journal of experimental child psychology N2 - The impact of goal salience and verbal cues given by the model on 3- to 5-year-olds' reproduction of action components (movement or goal) was investigated in an imitation choice task. Preschoolers watched an experimenter moving a puppet up or down a ramp, terminating at one of two target objects. The target objects were either differently colored plastic bowls (low-salient group) or sociofunctionally relevant objects (high-salient group). While demonstrating the action in several trials, the model verbalized either the movement, the goal, both the movement and the goal, or none of the components. Children imitated the action on a second ramp with reversed positions of the target objects, so they needed to decide whether to reproduce the observed movement or the observed end state. In the high-salient group, preschoolers preferentially imitated the goal component, whereas in the low-salient group, they did not show a preference for one of the components. Across trials, preschoolers preferentially imitated the goal when this component or both components were verbalized, whereas they showed no preference when the movement or none of the components was emphasized. Yet, verbal cues seemed to have stronger effects in the low-salient condition. We conclude that sociofunctional salience of action goals and communicative cues of the model affect young children's representation of observed actions, leading to a selective reproduction of those action components that are relevant to the child. KW - Imitation KW - Verbal cues KW - Goal salience KW - Preschoolers KW - Early social cognition KW - Action representation Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2012.02.010 SN - 0022-0965 VL - 112 IS - 3 SP - 283 EP - 295 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - THES A1 - Pelikan, Lilli T1 - Einfluss des pädagogischen Interaktionsstils auf initiale Imitation oder Exploration bei 3-Jährigen T1 - Effects of pedagogical interaction styles on initial imitation or exploration in 3-year-old children N2 - Die vorliegende Bachelor-Arbeit befasst sich mit der Frage, welchen Einfluss der pädagogische Interaktionsstil auf eine initiale Handlung (Imitation vs. Exploration) bei 3-Jährigen hat. An dieser experimentellen Studie in Kindergärten nahmen N = 39 Kinder teil, die verschiedene Handlungen mit neuartigen Objekten an einem Spielzeug (der Unusual-Box) demonstriert bekommen haben. Der Untersuchungsgegenstand war, ob Kinder bei einer pädagogischen Instruktion mehr imitieren und demnach weniger explorieren als bei einer Fragen-Instruktion und ob die Latenz der initialen Handlungen mit dem pädagogischen Interaktionsstil zusammenhängt. Es wurden zudem Alterseffekte untersucht, ob ältere Kinder mehr imitieren als Jüngere. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass pädagogisch instruierte Kinder häufiger als erste Reaktion eine Imitation produzieren, als Kinder, denen pädagogische Fragen während der Demonstration gestellt werden. Unterschiede in der Latenz der beiden Handlungstypen und Alterseffekte ließen sich aus den vorliegenden Daten nicht finden. Aus den Ergebnissen dieser Studie könnte abgeleitet werden, dass die Art der Instruktion in der pädagogischen Praxis induziert, welcher Handlungstyp bei den Kindern hervorgerufen wird. Aufgabenabhängig könnte dadurch gezielt der Weg geebnet werden für soziales Lernen in Form von Imitation und individuelles Lernen in Form von Exploration. N2 - Does a pedagogical instruction evoke more imitation than a pedagogical question? The present bachelor thesis aimed to discover whether these two forms of pedagogical interaction styles would affect initial action types (imitation vs. exploration) in 3-year-old children. This experimental study was carried out in kindergartens with a total number of 39 children participating. Different actions with unknown objects were demonstrated to children on a novel toy (the Unusual-Box), using either pedagogical questions or pedagogical instructions. The children’s activities were observed regarding initial action style, latency of these action styles and age-related differences. Results show that pedagogically instructed children are more likely to imitate actions as compared to children who were asked pedagogical questions. There were no differences in latency of the two examined action types and no age effects could be found. The current findings suggest that the interaction style used in pedagogical practice induces the type of action a child produces. From this we can conclude that pedagogical instruction could enhance social learning through imitation and that pedagogical questions may promote individual learning through exploration. KW - Imitation KW - Exploration KW - pädagogische Instruktion KW - pädagogische Fragen KW - Latenz KW - Imitation KW - Exploration KW - Pedagogical Instruction KW - Pedagogical Questions KW - Latency Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-481250 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Patzwald, Christiane A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Do as I say - or as I do?! BT - How 18-and 24-month-olds integrate words and actions to infer intentions in situations of match or mismatch JF - Infant behavior & development : an international and interdisciplinary journal N2 - Infants use behavioral and verbal cues to infer another person’s action intention. However, it is still unclear how infants integrate these often co-occurring cues depending on the cues’ coherence (i.e., the degree to which the cues provide coherent information about another’s intention). This study investigated how 18- and 24-month-olds’ (N = 88 per age group) action selection was influenced by varying the coherence of a model’s verbal and behavioral cues. Using a between-subjects design, infants received six trials with different stimulus objects. In the conditions Congruent, Incongruent, and Failed-attempt, the model uttered a telic verb particle that was followed by a matching or contradicting goal-directed action demonstration, or by a non goal-directed slipping motion, respectively. In the condition Pseudo-word, a nonsense word was combined with a goal-directed action demonstration. Infants’ action selection indicated an adherence to the verbal cue in Congruent, Incongruent, and Failed-attempt, and this was stronger in 24- than 18-month-olds. Additionally, in Incongruent and Failed-attempt, patterns of cue integration across the six trials varied in the two age groups. Regarding the behavioral cue, infants in Congruent and Pseudo-word preferentially followed this cue in both age groups, which also suggested a rather unspecific effect of the verbal cue in Congruent. Relatively longer first action-latencies in Incongruent and Failed-attempt implied that these types of coherence elicited higher cognitive demands than in Congruent and Pseudo-word. Results are discussed in light of infants’ flexibility in using social cues, depending on the cue’s coherence and on age-related social-cognitive differences. KW - Social cues KW - Social learning KW - Infancy KW - Action KW - Verbs KW - Imitation Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2019.03.004 SN - 0163-6383 SN - 1879-0453 VL - 55 SP - 46 EP - 57 PB - Elsevier CY - New York ER -