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. 2008 Oct;101(2):114-23.
doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2008.05.004. Epub 2008 Jul 16.

Imitative learning from a third-party interaction: relations with self-recognition and perspective taking

Katherine H Herold  1 , Nameera Akhtar
Affiliations

Imitative learning from a third-party interaction: relations with self-recognition and perspective taking

Katherine H Herold et al. J Exp Child Psychol. 2008 Oct.

Abstract

Young children's ability to learn something new from a third-party interaction may be related to the ability to imagine themselves in the third-party interaction. This imaginative ability presupposes an understanding of self-other equivalence, which is manifested in an objective understanding of the self and an understanding of others' subjective perspectives. The current study measured imitative learning of a novel action seen only in a third-party interaction, mirror self-recognition, and perspective taking in a group of 48 18- to 20-month-olds. Patterns of performance suggest that understanding self-other equivalence is related to third-party learning.

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