Imitation in Japanese quail: The role of reinforcement of demonstrator responding

Akins, Chana K.; Zentall, Thomas R.

doi:10.3758/bf03208847

Cited by 96 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…For example, Lefebvre and Palameta (1988) found that pigeons that observed a model pierce the paper cover on a food well to obtain hidden grain later acquired that response on their own, whereas those that observed that same response, but with no grain in the well (the model performed in extinction), failed to acquire the response. In this case, the observed behaviors were quite similar for the two groups but the consequences of the observed behavior were quite different (see also Akins & Zentall, 1998). One might be inclined to interpret this result cognitively as the observer's understanding of the consequences of the demonstrator's behavior; however, a Pavlovian conditioning account, in terms of the pairing of attention to a location and the appearance of a reinforcer, may be sufficient to explain the more rapid acquisition of the target behavior by the observer when the demonstrator's behavior is reinforced.…”

Section: Perceptual Factorsmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…In the case of blind imitation, the goal of the observer is generally not the same as the goal of the demonstrator. When behavioral copying depends on the outcome of the demonstrator's behavior, it suggests that the observer's intention is responsible (but see Akins & Zentall, 1998). Intentionality (Searle, 1983) is surely involved in many higher order forms of imitation by humans, such as the student dancer who repeats the movements of a teacher.…”

Section: More Complex Forms Of Imitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Perspectives on observational learning in animals.

Zentall

2012

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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Observational learning is presumed to have occurred when an organism copies an improbable action or action outcome that it has observed and the matching behavior cannot be explained by an alternative mechanism. Psychologists have been particularly interested in the form of observational learning known as imitation and in how to distinguish imitation from other processes. To successfully make this distinction, one must disentangle the degree to which behavioral similarity results from (a) predisposed behavior, (b) increased motivation resulting from the presence of another animal, (c) attention drawn to a place or object, (d) learning about the way the environment works, as distinguished from what we think of as (e) imitation (the copying of the demonstrated behavior). Several of the processes that may be involved in observational learning are reviewed, including social facilitation, stimulus enhancement, several kinds of emulation, and various forms of imitation.

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Section: Perceptual Factorsmentioning

confidence: 68%

Section: More Complex Forms Of Imitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspectives on observational learning in animals.

Zentall

2012

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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“…In fact, if the demonstrator's response is not reinforced, or if it cannot be observed, there is evidence that acquisition is impaired (Akins & Zentall, 1998;Groesbeck & Duerfeldt, 1971;Heyes, Jaldow, & Dawson, 1994). Furthermore, rats appear to acquire a bar-pressing response faster following observation of a bar-pressing demonstrator if they are fed at the same time as the performing demonstrator (Del Russo, 1971).…”

Section: Observational Conditioningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imitation in Animals: Evidence, Function, and Mechanisms

Zentall¹

2001

Cybernetics and Systems

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108

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The terms social learning and social in£uence have been used descriptively and theoretically to characterize a broad range of animal behavior from physical antipredatory adaptations such as eye spots, which are totally under genetic control, to the human capacity for the exaggeration of individual characteristics, known as caricature, which are largely under cognitive control. In the present review, the various forms of social in£uence and social learning are identi¢ed and distinghished from imitation, a term that generally has been reserved for behavioral matching that cannot be accounted for using simpler speci¢cally predisposed, motivational, or learning mechanisms. It is suggested that much of the ambiguity in the literature concerning the various forms of social learning can be attributed to the distinction between the function of a behavior and the mechanisms responsible for its occurrence. Finally, the various mechanisms that have been proposed to account for imitative learning are presented and an attempt is made to evaluate them.When the term imitation is used by psychologists it typically implies more than the simple reproduction of behavior. In everyday language, imitation carries with it the implication of intentionality or purposiveness (see Mitchell, 1987). When humans use imitation to describe their own behavior, it implies that there is an understanding of the relation between that behavior and the behavior being modeled (or visually demonstrated). For example, when a child imitates the

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“…Alternatively, it could be that observation resulted in crows learning an association between a particular locus and food when they observed a conspecific extracting food from that locus (observational conditioning; sensu Heyes, 1994), thus causing the observer to interact with that locus sooner (again, potentially on both apparatuses). Observational conditioning of this kind would be sensitive to the outcome of the demonstrator's actions, as we and others (Akins & Zentall, 1998) have found, since an association is only likely to form if the demonstrator is successful in extracting food from the locus in question. However, it is also possible that a successful interaction is simply more effective at attracting an observer's attention to a stimulus.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How New Caledonian crows solve novel foraging problems and what it means for cumulative culture

et al. 2015

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New Caledonian crows make and use tools, and tool types vary over geographic landscapes. Social learning may explain the variation in tool design, but it is unknown to what degree social learning accounts for the maintenance of these designs. Indeed, little is known about the mechanisms these crows use to obtain information from others, despite the question's importance in understanding whether tool behavior is transmitted via social, genetic, or environmental means. For social transmission to account for tool-type variation, copying must utilize a mechanism that is action specific (e.g., pushing left vs. right) as well as context specific (e.g., pushing a particular object vs. any object). To determine whether crows can copy a demonstrator's actions as well as the contexts in which they occur, we conducted a diffusion experiment using a novel foraging task. We used a nontool task to eliminate any confounds introduced by individual differences in their prior tool experience. Two groups had demonstrators (trained in isolation on different options of a four-option task, including a two-action option) and one group did not. We found that crows socially learn about context: After observers see a demonstrator interact with the task, they are more likely to interact with the same parts of the task. In contrast, observers did not copy the demonstrator's specific actions. Our results suggest it is unlikely that observing tool-making behavior transmits tool types. We suggest it is possible that tool types are transmitted when crows copy the physical form of the tools they encounter.

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Imitation in Japanese quail: The role of reinforcement of demonstrator responding

Cited by 96 publications

References 18 publications

Perspectives on observational learning in animals.

Perspectives on observational learning in animals.

Imitation in Animals: Evidence, Function, and Mechanisms

How New Caledonian crows solve novel foraging problems and what it means for cumulative culture

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