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THE IMPACT OF BODY‐PART‐NAMING TRAINING ON THE ACCURACY OF IMITATIVE PERFORMANCES IN 2‐ TO 3‐YEAR‐OLD CHILDREN
Author(s) -
CamωesCosta Vera,
Erjavec Mihela,
Horne Pauline J.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.2011.96-291
Subject(s) - tact , imitation , psychology , cognitive psychology , matching (statistics) , task (project management) , gesture , cognition , developmental psychology , computer science , social psychology , artificial intelligence , statistics , mathematics , management , neuroscience , economics
A series of three experiments explored the relationship between 3‐year‐old children's ability to name target body parts and their untrained matching of target hand‐to‐body touches. Nine participants, 3 per experiment, were presented with repeated generalized imitation tests in a multiple‐baseline procedure, interspersed with step‐by‐step training that enabled them to (i) tact the target locations on their own and the experimenter's bodies or (ii) respond accurately as listeners to the experimenter's tacts of the target locations. Prompts for on‐task naming of target body parts were also provided later in the procedure. In Experiment 1, only tact training followed by listener probes were conducted; in Experiment 2, tacting was trained first and listener behavior second, whereas in Experiment 3 listener training preceded tact training. Both tact and listener training resulted in emergence of naming together with significant and large improvements in the children's matching performances; this was true for each child and across most target gestures. The present series of experiments provides evidence that naming—the most basic form of self‐instructional behavior—may be one means of establishing untrained matching as measured in generalized imitation tests. This demonstration has a bearing on our interpretation of imitation reported in the behavior analytic, cognitive developmental, and comparative literature.