Understanding "prior intentions" enables two-year-olds to imitatively learn a complex task.

@article{Carpenter2002UnderstandingI,
  title={Understanding "prior intentions" enables two-year-olds to imitatively learn a complex task.},
  author={Malinda Carpenter and Josep Call and Michael Tomasello},
  journal={Child development},
  year={2002},
  volume={73 5},
  pages={
          1431-41
        }
}
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… 
View on PubMed
eva.mpg.de
132 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
8
Background Citations
29
Methods Citations
4
Results Citations
10

Figures and Tables from this paper

132 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

Contexts of a person's prior intentions facilitate observational learning in 2.5-year-old children
Own and Others' Prior Experiences Influence Children's Imitation of Causal Acts.
Change in children's understanding of others' intentional actions.
TLDR
The study investigated children's intention understanding using a longitudinal design and confirmed previous findings, i.e. children's tendency to produce the target act was higher at an older age than expected.
Ten-month-old infants use prior information to identify an actor's goal.
TLDR
The results suggest that infants may use their understanding of simple actions as a leverage point for understanding novel or ambiguous actions, but that their ability to do so is limited to certain types of contextual changes.
Prior experiences and perceived efficacy influence 3-year-olds' imitation.
TLDR
The research shows that children integrate information from their own prior interventions and their observations of others to guide their imitation.
Looking good versus doing good: which factors take precedence when children learn about new tools?
Outcome-based observational learning in human infants.
TLDR
Findings support the notion that goal attribution based on sensitivity to bodily cues is reliant on the clarity of the affordances of a task.
Verbal imitation is based on intention understanding
Sensitivity to communicative relevance tells young children what to imitate.
TLDR
Results indicate that, like adults, human infants expect communication to contain relevant content, and imitate action elements that, relative to their current knowledge state or to the common ground with the demonstrator, is identified as most relevant.
Understanding the experimenter's intention improves 16-month-olds’ observational learning of the use of a novel tool
...
1
2
3
4
5
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 26 REFERENCES
Understanding the Intentions of Others: Re-Enactment of Intended Acts by 18-Month-Old Children.
TLDR
Eighteen-month-olds situate people within a psychological framework that differentiates between the surface behavior of people and a deeper level involving goals and intentions and showed that children could infer the adult's intended act by watching the failed attempts.
Learning from other people's mistakes: causal understanding in learning to use a tool.
TLDR
Two studies indicate that by 3 years of age, children do not indiscriminately imitate actions on a tool, but selectively reproduce those actions that have a desired causal effect.
Fourteen-through 18-month-old infants di eren-tially imitate intentional and accidental actions
Holding it all together: How enabling relations facilitate young children's event recall ☆
Distinguishing intentional from accidental actions in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), and human children (Homo sapiens).
TLDR
This study investigates the understanding of others' intentions in 2- and 3-year-old children, chimpanzees, and orangutans, and finds that subjects understood something about the experimenter's intentions.
How do children ape? Applying concepts from the study of non-human primates to the developmental study of 'imitation' in children
We highlight two aspects of research into social learning that have been neglected in existing developmental research, namely: (1) The role of social learning in learning to use tools, and (2)…
Increasing steps in recall of events: factors facilitating immediate and long-term memory in 13.5- and 16.5-month-old children.
TLDR
It is demonstrated that children as young as 13 months can recall specific events after a delay and development in sensitivity to factors that facilitate recall is suggested.
Re-enacting intended acts: Comparing 12- and 18-month-olds
Understanding intention in normal development and in autism
This study aimed to establish whether or not young children and young people with autism can understand the mental state of intention. Participants were exposed to personal experience of unintended…
Children's theories of mind: Mental states and social understanding.
Contents: C. Moore, D. Frye, The Acquisition and Utility of Theories of Mind. D. Frye, The Origins of Intention in Infancy. D. Premack, The Infant's Theory of Self-Propelled Objects. I. Bretherton,…
...
1
2
3
...