The hidden structure of overimitation - PubMed
- ️Mon Jan 01 2007
The hidden structure of overimitation
Derek E Lyons et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007.
Abstract
Young children are surprisingly judicious imitators, but there are also times when their reproduction of others' actions appears strikingly illogical. For example, children who observe an adult inefficiently operating a novel object frequently engage in what we term overimitation, persistently reproducing the adult's unnecessary actions. Although children readily overimitate irrelevant actions that even chimpanzees ignore, this curious effect has previously attracted little interest; it has been assumed that children overimitate not for theoretically significant reasons, but rather as a purely social exercise. In this paper, however, we challenge this view, presenting evidence that overimitation reflects a more fundamental cognitive process. We show that children who observe an adult intentionally manipulating a novel object have a strong tendency to encode all of the adult's actions as causally meaningful, implicitly revising their causal understanding of the object accordingly. This automatic causal encoding process allows children to rapidly calibrate their causal beliefs about even the most opaque physical systems, but it also carries a cost. When some of the adult's purposeful actions are unnecessary-even transparently so-children are highly prone to mis-encoding them as causally significant. The resulting distortions in children's causal beliefs are the true cause of overimitation, a fact that makes the effect remarkably resistant to extinction. Despite countervailing task demands, time pressure, and even direct warnings, children are frequently unable to avoid reproducing the adult's irrelevant actions because they have already incorporated them into their representation of the target object's causal structure.
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Figures

The puzzle objects and examples of the corresponding experimenter action sequences (Table 1 provides text descriptions). In addition to those shown here, a second action sequence variant was also used for each object, with presentation counterbalanced across participants. The two sequences for a given object differed in the specific means that the adult used to operate each mechanism. On the Puzzle Box (based on a stimulus from ref. 10), for example, the red bolt was pushed out in one sequence and pulled out in the other. For more detail and depictions of the other action sequences, see the
SI Methodsand
SI Figs. 7–10.

Overimitation persists despite contrary task demands. Experiment 1A participants who observed the experimenter produced unnecessary actions significantly more often than baseline participants who opened the puzzle objects independently.

Overimitation persists beyond the boundaries of the experiment. The apparent conclusion of the study in Experiment 1B did not significantly change overimitation levels for the Cage and Dome. Overimitation on the Puzzle Box was attenuated but remained four times more frequent than in the baseline condition.

Overimitation is not blocked by direct contrary instruction. Explicitly warning Experiment 2A participants to ignore any unnecessary actions performed by the experimenter failed to diminish overimitation.

Overimitation is subject to contact constraints. Overimitation was significantly more frequent on the connected form of the Igloo than on the disconnected form. Overimitation on the disconnected form failed to exceed the background level of irrelevant action production observed in the baseline condition.
Similar articles
-
The scope and limits of overimitation in the transmission of artefact culture.
Lyons DE, Damrosch DH, Lin JK, Macris DM, Keil FC. Lyons DE, et al. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2011 Apr 12;366(1567):1158-67. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0335. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2011. PMID: 21357238 Free PMC article.
-
Why do children overimitate? Normativity is crucial.
Keupp S, Behne T, Rakoczy H. Keupp S, et al. J Exp Child Psychol. 2013 Oct;116(2):392-406. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2013.07.002. Epub 2013 Aug 8. J Exp Child Psychol. 2013. PMID: 23933292
-
The social modulation of imitation fidelity in school-age children.
Marsh LE, Ropar D, Hamilton AF. Marsh LE, et al. PLoS One. 2014 Jan 22;9(1):e86127. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0086127. eCollection 2014. PLoS One. 2014. PMID: 24465913 Free PMC article.
-
The Rationality of (Over)imitation.
Keupp S, Behne T, Rakoczy H. Keupp S, et al. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2018 Nov;13(6):678-687. doi: 10.1177/1745691618794921. Epub 2018 Oct 9. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2018. PMID: 30301424 Review.
-
The developmental origins of naïve psychology in infancy.
Poulin-Dubois D, Brooker I, Chow V. Poulin-Dubois D, et al. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2009;37:55-104. doi: 10.1016/s0065-2407(09)03702-1. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2009. PMID: 19673160 Review.
Cited by
-
Infants' understanding of the causal power of agents and tools.
Adibpour P, Hochmann JR. Adibpour P, et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Dec 12;120(50):e2309669120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2309669120. Epub 2023 Dec 8. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023. PMID: 38064512 Free PMC article.
-
Blocking a redundant cue: what does it say about preschoolers' causal competence?
Kloos H, Sloutsky VM. Kloos H, et al. Dev Sci. 2013 Sep;16(5):713-27. doi: 10.1111/desc.12047. Epub 2013 Jun 11. Dev Sci. 2013. PMID: 24033577 Free PMC article.
-
Tracking the actions and possessions of agents.
Gelman SA, Noles NS, Stilwell S. Gelman SA, et al. Top Cogn Sci. 2014 Oct;6(4):599-614. doi: 10.1111/tops.12106. Epub 2014 Aug 11. Top Cogn Sci. 2014. PMID: 25111732 Free PMC article. Clinical Trial.
-
Pursuing Darwin's curious parallel: Prospects for a science of cultural evolution.
Mesoudi A. Mesoudi A. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Jul 25;114(30):7853-7860. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1620741114. Epub 2017 Jul 24. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017. PMID: 28739929 Free PMC article.
-
Problem solving flexibility across early development.
Hopper LM, Jacobson SL, Howard LH. Hopper LM, et al. J Exp Child Psychol. 2020 Dec;200:104966. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104966. Epub 2020 Aug 26. J Exp Child Psychol. 2020. PMID: 32860967 Free PMC article.
References
-
- Gergely G, Csibra G. Interact Stud. 2005;6:463–481.
-
- Gergely G, Csibra G. In: Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition, and Human Interaction. Enfield NJ, Levenson SC, editors. Oxford: Berg Publishers; 2006. pp. 229–255.
-
- Heyes CM, Foster CL. Q J Exp Psychol. 2002;55A:593–607. - PubMed
-
- Meltzoff AN, Gopnik A. In: Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives from Autism. Baron-Cohen S, Tager-Flusberg H, Cohen DJ, editors. Oxford: Oxford Univ Press; 1993. pp. 335–366.
-
- Tomasello M. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ Press; 1999.
Publication types
MeSH terms
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
Other Literature Sources