Abstract
This study investigated the flexibility of 2-year-old infants’ retrieval and reenactment processes. In a delayed imitation paradigm, children were exposed to a constraint change (implemented by the distance of a target object) affecting the relevance of using a tool to obtain a goal (reach the object). In Experiment 1, during demonstration in the first session the tool was either relevant or irrelevant for reaching the goal, and 1 week later it either lost or gained its relevance, respectively. We found that when the tool became unnecessary (relevant to irrelevant change), children used it somewhat less than before and used it less compared with when the tool’s relevance remained the same (relevant to relevant, no change). When the tool became necessary after a constraint change (irrelevant to relevant change), children used the tool more than before, but not as much as in the Relevant–Relevant control condition. In Experiment 2, the timing of the constraint change (immediate or delayed) was varied in a modified version of the Irrelevant–Relevant condition, where practice before the constraint change was omitted. Children were not significantly more flexible in the immediate condition than in the delayed condition, and comparisons with Experiment 1 showed that performance did not change if we omitted the practice before the change. These results indicate that although 2-year-olds show considerable mnemonic performance, they face difficulties in adapting to constraint changes. We propose that this inflexibility may stem from infants’ inability to revise their evaluations formed in previous events due to their immature episodic memory capacities.
Highlights
Humans encode others’ actions in light of their respective goals (Csibra & Gergely, 2007)
After demonstration, they imitated according to the situational constraints; they used the tool more when it was necessary (Relevant– Irrelevant and Relevant–Relevant conditions) and largely omitted it when it was not necessary (Irrelevant–Relevant condition)
After a 1-week delay and a constraint change, there was an observable change in children’s strategies given that they used the tool somewhat more when it became relevant (Irrelevant–Relevant), used it less when it became irrelevant (Relevant–Irrelevant), and did not change their strategy when the relevance remained the same (Relevant–Relevant). The latter condition excludes the possibility that children in either condition did not use the tool in Session 2 because they had forgotten it because they could retrieve it even after the 1-week delay if the context remained the same. Some children changed their strategies from Session 1 to Session 2 in the changing-relevance groups, they were not as flexible in the second session as they were in the first session immediately after demonstration
Summary
Humans encode others’ actions in light of their respective goals (Csibra & Gergely, 2007). Infants are able to identify the most optimal means for goal attainment given the potential constraints In goal emulation, they apply these optimal means to reach the previously observed goal given their own motor repertoire (Gergely, Bekkering, & Király, 2002; Király & Oláh, 2018). They apply these optimal means to reach the previously observed goal given their own motor repertoire (Gergely, Bekkering, & Király, 2002; Király & Oláh, 2018) This teleological reasoning guides infants in the case of more complex action sequences when they omit steps that are unnecessary to reach the goal and are irrelevant to reenact (Bauer & Mandler, 1989).
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