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

Full Abstract

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 paired with an irrelevant action. Children in three Prior Intention conditions knew what E was trying to do before the demonstration:
they first saw E either attempt unsuccessfully to open the door, or visit and open several other containers, or they first saw that the door opened. Children opened the box themselves more often in each of these three conditions than in the two No Prior Intention conditions, even though children in all five conditions saw the exact same demonstration of how to open the box.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Carpenter, Malinda (M); Call, Josep (J); Tomasello, Michael (M);

Affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. carpenter(-atsign-)eva.mpg.de

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Child development (Child Dev), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: -2002 Sep-Oct; vol 73 (issue 5) : pp 1431-41

Dates: Created 2002/10/03; Completed 2003/02/14; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12361310, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

This article has not been indexed for related articles as yet, however you can still use the live related article search links below.

See 100+ related articles.