Behavioral Analysis of Imitation Research in Young Children
This paper critically evaluates Erjavec and Horne's (2008) study on the determinants of imitation in young children. The paper examines the study's baseline modeling procedure, reinforcement schedules, and dependent measures, then identifies key methodological and theoretical flaws. Drawing on Thorndike's laws of effect, exercise, and recency, as well as Skinnerian operant principles, the author argues that children were reinforced for the general act of playing and imitating rather than for specific target behaviors. Additional critique focuses on developmental limitations in left-right discrimination, which the author contends explains the prevalence of mirroring responses, and a modified experimental design using a mirror is proposed to address these confounds.
- Overview of Erjavec and Horne's Study: Summary of the study's design, procedure, and findings
- Reinforcement and the Role of Thorndike's Laws: Critique of reinforcement assumptions using Thorndike's principles
- Mirroring and Left-Right Discrimination in Young Children: Developmental explanation for mirroring behavior in young children
- Implications for a Skinnerian Interpretation: Skinnerian framework applied to unreinforced target behaviors
- Proposed Methodological Improvement and Conclusion: Mirror-based redesign proposed to address procedural flaws
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper applies established behavioral theories — Thorndike's laws and Skinnerian operant conditioning — directly to a specific empirical study, grounding its critique in theoretical frameworks rather than general opinion.
- It uses the researchers' own data (notably, the counting of mirrored responses as correct in Tables 2a and 2b) as evidence against the study's conclusions, a rhetorically strong move.
- The paper connects developmental psychology (left-right discrimination norms from Rigal, 1994) to the behavioral analysis, demonstrating interdisciplinary awareness.
- It closes with a constructive alternative experimental design, moving beyond criticism to offer a practical solution.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates critical evaluation of a primary research article — a core graduate-level skill. Rather than simply summarizing the study, the author interrogates its theoretical assumptions and procedural choices, using the study's own reported data points to expose internal inconsistencies.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a summary of the target study, then transitions into layered critique: first questioning the reinforcement assumptions using Thorndike's laws, then addressing mirroring through developmental evidence, then interpreting results through a Skinnerian lens, and finally proposing a mirror-based experimental redesign. This progression from summary → critique → alternative is a clear and effective structure for a critical analysis paper.
Overview of Erjavec and Horne's Study
Erjavec and Horne (2008) investigated the determinants of imitation in children. The general view, according to the authors, is that imitation is a function established early in human development that makes possible the acquisition of important behavioral repertoires — such as verbal behavior — that are exclusively human. There is disagreement about whether the propensity toward imitation in humans is innate or learned; however, the process by which imitation is learned is also of interest to researchers, and several different models have been proposed.
The researchers used an accepted procedure of training infants in a baseline modeling phase involving four behaviors with continuous reinforcement, followed by a 50% VR2 intermittent reinforcement schedule, and then interspersing the baseline matching behaviors with unreinforced target behaviors. The dependent measure was the accuracy of imitation of the target behaviors, while several independent variables were used, including the age of the children (groups of three- and four-year-olds), whether behaviors were common or uncommon, and the number of trials.
In essence, the target behaviors were not reinforced — or were they? One explanation for the imitation of unreinforced behaviors is a form of generalization, referred to by Pavlov but termed in these paradigms as parity. That is, children generalize to similarly reinforced imitative behaviors. However, because children produced common responses (trained) as mismatches to uncommon ones and did not improve in accuracy over subsequent trials, Erjavec and Horne (2008) found no evidence for the parity explanation. A Skinnerian model was supported in that children's history of trained matching would play a role in the errors they displayed. Children were noted to be biased toward mirroring the experimenters — that is, a child would imitate a left-hand nose touch from the experimenter (who was seated directly across from them) with their right hand — and there was a slight bias for the use of the right hand.
References
Erjavec, M., & Horne, P. J. (2008). Determinants of imitation of hand-to-body gestures in 2- and 3-year-old children. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 89, 183–207.
Rigal, R. (1994). Right-left orientation: Development of correct use of right and left terms. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 79, 1259–1278.
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