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Results for “Imitative Behavior”

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At least 217 records · Page 12Linked to original sources
PubMed1983

Social skills training with institutionalized severely and profoundly mentally retarded persons.

This paper examines the literature on training severely and profoundly retarded individuals in social skills. Experimental studies have focused mainly on three areas: (1) cooperative responding during play, (2) non-verbal physical or close-proximity interactions, and (3) conversational skills. Training procedures varied but usually involved combinations of physical and verbal prompting, modeling, shaping, and social and edible reinforcement. These studies provide strong evidence that severely and profoundly retarded individuals can be taught useful interpersonal skills and can sometimes even assist the development of these skills in their peers. In general, the studies were methodologically sound in terms of basic design and interobserver reliabilities but weak with respect to maintenance and follow-up procedures. Only some studies tested for generalization of treatment effects and only a few specifically trained for such generalization.

Behavior Therapy↗
PubMed1986

A behavioral approach to the training and assessment of feeding skills in multihandicapped children.

In the present study, a behavioral program for training feeding skills was evaluated using a multiple-baseline experimental design. Six hospitalized mentally retarded-behaviorally disordered children served as subjects. Three groups of two subjects each were instructed in three feeding skills: chewing with mouth closed, appropriate utensil use, and appropriate napkin use. Training consisted of praise for appropriate display of target behaviors; on occurrence of inappropriate behavior, the following sequence was carried out: 10-second time-out; instruction in appropriate behavior including modeling and manual guidance; and behavioral rehearsal. Results indicated positive behavior change in training sessions and in immediately succeeding sessions during which training was withheld. Furthermore, behavioral gains were judged to be clinically significant by a group of independent observers. Modest generalization and maintenance of training effects were also evidenced.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

A new paradigm to analyze observational learning in rats.

A new paradigm of learning was developed through observational training in which rats repeatedly observed companion rats performing different spatial tasks. Observer animals were separately housed in small cages suspended over a water maze tank. They repeatedly observed companion actor rats performing spatial tasks differing according to the experimental requirements. After the observational training, observer animals were or not surgically hemicerebellectomized. This surgical ablation was performed to block any further acquisition of new behavioral strategies during actual performance of swimming task. When cerebellar symptomatology stabilized, observer animals were actually tested in the Morris Water Maze (MWM) task they had previously only observed. The observer rats displayed exploration abilities that closely matched the previously observed behaviors. The results obtained indicate that it is possible to learn complex behavioral strategies by observation using this new protocol. Furthermore, acquisition of the single facets that form the behavioral repertoire can be separately studied.

Animals↗
PubMed1998

Fixation behavior in observation and imitation of human movement.

This paper describes experiments performed with 40 subjects wearing an eye-tracker and watching and imitating videos of finger, hand, and arm movements. For all types of stimuli, the subjects tended to fixate on the hand, regardless of whether they were imitating or just watching. The results lend insight into the connection between visual perception and motor control, suggesting that: (1) people analyze human arm movements largely by tracking the hand or the end-point, even if the movement is performed with the entire arm, and (2) when imitating, people use internal innate and learned models of movement, possibly in the form of motor primitives, to recreate the details of whole-arm posture and movement from end-point trajectories.

Elbow↗
PubMed2001

Social influences involved in children's gambling behavior.

Children (N = 130) in grades 4 and 6 from various schools in the Greater Montreal Region completed a questionnaire concerning their gambling behavior and played a computer-simulated roulette game individually (baseline trial & post-test trial) and in groups (same and mixed gender dyads or triads: group trial). The purpose of this design was to measure children's betting behavior (via average wagers) and to determine if any changes in betting occur as a result of playing in groups of two, three, same and/or different gender peers. Results of repeated measures analyses reveal that during individual and group play, males consistently exhibit higher average wagers than females. Average wagers of females and mixed gender groupings appear to be most affected by the group condition. Females were found to increase their average wagers when playing with females and males. Female dyads' wagers increase significantly during group play, indicating they are dramatically affected by the group game. Most changes resulting from group play were generally maintained over a relatively short period of time in the post-test condition. Results are interpreted with respect to the importance of the influence of the peer group on children's gambling behavior. Future directions for research are suggested.

Child↗
PubMed1992

Effects of alternative modeling strategies on outcomes of interpersonal-skills training.

The effects of two alternative modeling strategies-using multiple scenarios and combining negative and positive model displays-on outcomes of a behavior modeling training program were explored. Trainees (N = 72) participated in a program on assertive communication structured to allow for a controlled experimental design that crossed scenario variability (one vs. multiple scenarios) with model display variability (positive model displays vs. positive and negative model displays). Outcomes assessed included trainee reactions, learning, and retention and behavioral measures of reproduction and generalization. The effects of multiple scenarios were negligible, but the positive and negative combination of model displays had a significant positive effect on trainee generalization and a significant negative effect on reproduction. Implications for future modeling research and practice are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Inferences about guessing and knowing by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

The visual perspective-taking ability of 4 chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) was investigated. The subjects chose between information about the location of hidden food provided by 2 experimenters who randomly alternated between two roles (the guesser and the knower). The knower baited 1 of 4 obscured cups so that the subjects could watch the process but could not see which of the cups contained the reward. The guesser waited outside the room until the food was hidden. Finally, the knower pointed to the correct cup while the guesser pointed to an incorrect one. The chimpanzees quickly learned to respond to the knower. They also showed transfer to a novel variation of the task, in which the guesser remained inside the room and covered his head while the knower stood next to him and watched a third experimenter bait the cups. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that chimpanzees are capable of modeling the visual perspectives of others.

Animals↗
PubMed1992

Syllable chunking in zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) song.

We examined how 61 young zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) males copied song from 5 adult tutors. Zebra finch song consists of a string of 5-15 distinct syllables, and these syllables were copied as chunks, or strings of consecutive syllables (modal length = 3). The silent interval between 2 syllables was copied as part of the syllable after the silence. Copied chunks had boundaries that fell at consistent locations within the tutor's song, marked by a relatively long intersyllable silent period, a transition between call-like and noncall-like syllables, and a tendency for the tutor male to stop his song short. Young males also tended to break their songs off at the boundaries of the chunks they had copied. Chunks appear to be an intermediate level of hierarchy in song organization and to have both perceptual (syllables were learned as part of a chunk) and motor (song delivery was broken almost exclusively at chunk boundaries) aspects.

Animals↗
PubMed1995

Differential influence of adult and juvenile conspecifics on feeding by weanling rats (Rattus norvegicus): a size-related explanation.

Weanling Sprague Dawley rat pups (Rattus norvegicus) selected between 2 safe palatable diets in concordance with the preferences of either an adult or a juvenile conspecific model (Experiment 1). Nevertheless, weanlings chose to feed more in the vicinity of an adult than in the vicinity of a juvenile, thus fulfilling the prediction of an adaptive feeding strategy (Experiment 2). The weanlings' bias for feeding in the vicinity of an adult was eliminated by increasing the magnitude of pup stimulus to 3 pups (Experiment 3). Thus, weanlings do not possess a specialization rendering them more sensitive to adults than to pups as models for diet selection. By responding to stimulus magnitude, weanlings are more likely to feed with adult conspecifics, choose foods used by them, and derive the benefits correlated with the adults' successful feeding habits.

Animals↗
PubMed1997

Development of stone tool use by wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

At the age of 3.5 years, wild chimpanzees at Bossou, Guinea, begin to use hammer and anvil stones to crack oil-palm nuts to get the kernels. To clarify the developmental processes, the authors did a field experiment in which stones and oil-palm nuts were provided. Infant chimpanzees' stone-nut manipulation was observed and video recorded. Data were collected from 3 infants younger than 4 years old from 1992 to 1995. The authors analyzed 692 episodes of infants' stone-nut manipulation and 150 episodes of infants' observation of nut cracking performed by adults. Infants observed other chimpanzees' nut cracking and got the kernels from them. The stone-nut manipulation developed from a single action on a single object to multiple actions on multiple objects. Although infant chimpanzees at the age of 2.5 years already acquired basic actions necessary for nut cracking, they did not combine the actions in an appropriate sequence to perform actual nut cracking.

Aging↗