Poster #27 - Flexibility in Object Substitution Pretense: Role of socio-interactional cues

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

In object-substitution pretense, the action performed with an artifact differs from its familiar function (Albertson & Shore, 2009). Due to a conflict between existing knowledge about the familiar function and the social motivation to copy the actions demonstrated by adults, two-year-olds often struggle with this kind of pretend play (Tomassello, 1999). The present study asks whether social signals provided by the model can alter performance, helping toddlers to become engaged in object-substitution more easily.
In an object substitution-task, 26-month-olds (N=29) were encouraged to imitate two different actions previously demonstrated by two different experimenters with the same familiar artifact. One experimenter provided ostensive cues and interacted socially with the child; the other one did not interact with the toddler at all, but only focused on the object and the demonstration. Both experimenters clearly marked their actions as pretend play, though (i.e. by exaggerating gestures and making playful sounds). One action demonstration was conventional (e.g. brush teeth with a toothbrush), the other one was unconventional (e.g. make a phone call with a toothbrush), thus involving object-substitution. The specific combination of experimenter (ostensive, non-ostensive) and kind of demonstration (conventional-unconventional) varied across a total of five trials, with a different artifact used on each given trial (see Figure 1).
When analyzing children's imitation rates on the very first trial (i.e. before the experimenter may have changed the kind of demonstrated action), children imitated the conventional action significantly more often (M= 0.21, SD = 0.23) than the unconventional action (M= 0.04, SD = 0.08), z = -3.43, p < 0.05, independent of the experimenter's attitude. This confirms earlier findings with a similar task indicating that toddlers hesitate to imitate actions involving familiar artifacts that conflict with their functional knowledge (Wissner, 2017). When analyzing the impact of social cues for children's performance on the same trial, we found that the ostensive experimenter (M = 0.13, SD = 0.17) and the non-ostensive experimenter (M = 0.12, SD = 0.18) were imitated equally often, z = -.26, p > .05, independent of whether they demonstrated a conventional or unconventional action.
These preliminary findings indicate that 26-month-olds prefer to imitate actions showing the conventional over the unconventional use of familiar artifacts in a pretend play task. This tendency seems to be largely independent of whether or not the actions are demonstrated in a social-interactive (ostensive) way or not. Analyses regarding all five trials combined are currently under way and will be presented on the poster.

Authors

• Sabina Maria Pauen, Heidelberg University
  Presenting Author

• Julia Wissner, Heidelberg University
  Non-Presenting Author