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The role of social signals in segmenting observed actions in eighteen-month-old children.

Abstract
Learning about actions requires children to identify the boundaries of an action and its units. Whereas some action units are easily identified, parents can support children's action learning by adjusting the presentation and using social signals. However, currently little is understood regarding how children use these signals to learn actions. In the current study we investigate the possibility that communicative signals are a particularly suitable cue for segmenting events. We investigated this hypothesis by presenting 18-month-old children (N = 60) with short action sequences consisting of toy animals either hopping or sliding across a board into a house, but interrupting this two-step sequence either (a) using an ostensive signal as a segmentation cue, (b) using a non-ostensive segmentation cue, and (c) without additional segmentation information between the actions. Marking the boundary using communicative signals increased children's imitation of the less salient sliding action. Imitation of the hopping action remained unaffected. Crucially, marking the boundary of both actions using a non-communicative control condition did not increase imitation of either action. Communicative signals might be particularly suitable in segmenting non-salient actions that would otherwise be perceived as part of another action or as non-intentional. These results provide evidence of the importance of ostensive signals at event boundaries in scaffolding children's learning.
Type
Journal Article
Type of thesis
Series
Citation
Date
2021
Publisher
Wiley
Wiley
Degree
Supervisors
Rights
This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Kilesch, C., Parise, E., Reid, V. & Hoehl, S. (2021). The role of social signals in segmenting observed actions in eighteen-month-old children. Developmental Science, published online on November 24, 2021, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13198. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.