Effects of Imitation and Nonimitation on Children's Differential Recall Ability

Summary

This study examined the reinforcing effects of contingent imitation on children's retentional processes. Sixty 9- and 10-year-old boys and girls participated in a spelling game in which their responses were imitated at various levels by one female adult and not imitated by another. Subjects then observed while the adults made choices among commodity triads and displayed particular words. Children were then asked to recall the adults' respective stimuli. Analyses of the children's recall scores revealed a greater recall of the imitating confederate's stimuli than of the nonimitating confederate's. These findings were obtained regardless of the percentage level of contingent imitation. While these results provide limited support for conceptualizing the “being imitated” phenomenon as reinforcing, they do seem congenial to theories explicating the effect of incentives on memory processes.