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…

Social precursors to symbolic understanding of pictures were examined with 100 infants ages 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18 months. Adults demonstrated 1 of 2 stances toward pictures and objects (contemplative or manipulative), and then gave items to infants for exploration. For pictures, older infants (12, 15, and 18 months) emulated the adult's actions…

In two experiments, the effects of modeling on multiple seriation and multiple classification skills in preschool children were examined. In the first study, children observed models who demonstrated either multidimensional grouping or ordering. In the second, children received only single classification training on the basis of form, color, or…