Sylvia's Recipe: The Role of Imitation and Pedagogy in the Transmission of Cultural Knowledge

By György Gergely, Gergely Csibra. 2006

246 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Historically, imitation has frequently been proposed as the central mechanism mediating the reproduction, spread, intergenerational transmission and stabilization of human cultural forms, population-specific behavioral traditions found in groups of non-human primates, or both (Baldwin 1894; Bandura 1986; Blackmore 2000; Byrne and Russon 1998; Dawkins 1976; Dennett 1995; Donald 1991; Meltzoff 1996; Tomasello, Kruger, and Rutner 1993; Tomasello 1999; Whiten 2000; Whiten and Custance 1996). In this paper we provide a critical reappraisal of the dominant role classically attributed to imitation in cultural reproduction. We argue that the properties of alternative social learning mechanisms (such as emulation or imitation) reflect the specific demand characteristics that different kinds of cultural products impose on their cultural transmission process to ensure their reproducibility. We distinguish between cultural forms whose functionally relevant aspects are cognitively ‘transparent’ versus ‘opaque’ for the observational learner and discuss the inherent relation between these properties on the one hand, and emulation versus imitation on the other. We argue how the emergence of different cultural environments with predominantly cognitively transparent versus opaque cultural forms may have led to the selection and specialization of suitable alternative social transmission mechanisms.

Subfields: Cultural Studies, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aadb968f7a109d3f8d566bd5a4e300de414ed350

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Citations in the corpus

The gap is social: Human shared intentionality and culture (2010, background): “Gergely and Csibra (2006) have recently elaborated an account explaining why the existence of relatively “opaque” cultural conventions (there is no causal structure or else it is difficult to see this structure) requires that human adults be specifically adapted for pedagogy toward children and huma”
Rational Imitation in 12-Month-Old Infants (2006, background): “This is especially important in human cultural learning, when sometimes it is necessary to do things the way others do (e.g., when learning the conventional use of artifacts or communicative symbols; see Gergely & Csibra, 2006; Tomasello, 1999) and sometimes it is not.”
Human Culture in Evolutionary Perspective (2010, background): “Teaching is especially important in the human case because of cultural conventions that cannot be invented on one’s own but only imitated (Gergely & Csibra, 2006 ; see earlier discussion).”
Learning 'From Nobody': The Limited Role of Teaching in Folk Models of Children's Development (2010, unknown): “These arguments are predicated on models of brain evolution and human development focused on tool-making and information processing (Gergely and Csibra 2006, 246).”
Towards a unified science of cultural evolution. (2006, background): “…to comparative studies of observational learning in children and chimpanzees (Horner & Whiten 2005; Nagell et al. 1993; Whiten 1998; Whiten et al. 1996; Whiten et al., in press), and the role of pedagogy in cultural transmission (Csibra & Gergely 2005; Gergely & Csibra 2006; Wood et al. 1976).”
The evolution of teaching (2008, background): “Second, in addition to placing pupils in situations conducive to learning and reinforcing or punishing pupils’ behaviour, humans are inclined to manifest their knowledge and can demonstrate actions (Gergely & Csibra 2006).”
Shared intentionality. (2007, background): “…communicative cues that they are trying to demonstrate something ), 14-month-old infants copy the particular actions the adults used, and they do so much more often than when adults do not explicitly instruct – in which case they just copy the result the adult achieved (Gergely & Csibra, 2006).”
Investigating the Mechanisms of Cultural Acquisition How Pervasive is Overimitation in Adults (2012, background): “Copying behaviors that appear to be to instrumentally irrelevant to an outcome is costly in terms of time and energy, as well as the embarrassment of copying unintended actions (Gergely & Csibra, 2006).”
How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Social and Gender Norms? A Meta-Ethnographic Review (2018, background): “Although many argue that teaching is a key human adaptation which does not exist in other animals (e.g., Gergely & Csibra, 2006; Tomasello, Kruger, & Ratner, 1993), others argue that teaching does not occur in all cultures, often using foragers as the example.”
Ratcheting up the ratchet: on the evolution of cumulative culture (2009, background): “Indeed, Gergely & Csibra (2006) have recently elaborated an account explaining why the existence of relatively ‘opaque’ cultural conventions (there is no causal structure or else it is difficult to see this structure) requires both that human adults be specifically adapted for pedagogy toward…”