Observational learning in chimpanzees and children studied through 'ghost' conditions.

ABSTRACT: Emulation has been distinguished from imitation as a form of observational learning because it focuses not on the model's actions but on the action's environmental results. Whether a species emulates, imitates or displays only simpler observational learning is expected to have profound implications for its capacity for cultural transmission. Chimpanzees' observational learning has been suggested to be primarily emulative, but this is an inference largely based upon low fidelity copying in experiments when comparing chimpanzees with humans rather than direct testing. Here we test directly for emulation learning by chimpanzees and children using a 'ghost' condition in which a sliding door obscuring a reward was moved to left or right with no agent visible, a context associated with the only

SUBMITTER: Hopper LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2596905 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature