M. Tomasello, A. Kruger, and H. Ratner (1993) proposed a theory of cultural learning comprising imitative learning, instructed learning, and collaborative learning. Empirical and theoretical advances in the past 20 years suggest modifications to the theory; for example, children do not just imitate but overimitate in order to identify and…

Compared the abilities of 3 mother-reared and 3 human-raised (enculturated) chimpanzees and 16 human toddlers to imitatively learn novel actions on objects. Found that mother-reared chimpanzees were poorer imitators than both enculturated chimpanzees and human children, who did not differ from one another in imitative learning. On time delay…