Understanding "prior intentions" enables two-year-olds to imitatively learn a complex task.
Journal Article (Journal Article)
This study investigated children's understanding of others' intentions in a social learning context. Specifically, it investigated whether knowing an adult's prior intention before the adult gives a demonstration influences what children learn from the demonstration. In the five main experimental conditions, ninety-six 2-year-old children watched as an experimenter (E) pulled out a pin and opened the door of a box. Children in two No Prior Intention conditions saw this demonstration alone or paired with an irrelevant action. Children in three Prior Intention conditions knew what E was trying to do before the demonstration: they first saw E either attempt unsuccessfully to open the door, or visit and open several other containers, or they first saw that the door opened. Children opened the box themselves more often in each of these three conditions than in the two No Prior Intention conditions, even though children in all five conditions saw the exact same demonstration of how to open the box.
Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Carpenter, M; Call, J; Tomasello, M
Published Date
- September 2002
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 73 / 5
Start / End Page
- 1431 - 1441
PubMed ID
- 12361310
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1467-8624
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 0009-3920
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1111/1467-8624.00481
Language
- eng