title: The effect of narrative cues on infants' imitation from television and picture books.
abstract: Infants can imitate a novel action sequence from television and picture books, yet there has been no direct comparison of infants' imitation from the 2 types of media. Varying the narrative cues available during the demonstration and test, the current experiments measured 18- and 24-month-olds' imitation from television and picture books. Infants imitated from both media types when full narrative cues (Experiment 1; N = 76) or empty, meaningless narration (Experiment 2; N = 135) accompanied the demonstrations, but they imitated more from television than books. In Experiment 3 (N = 27), infants imitated from a book based on narration alone, without the presence of pictures. These results are discussed in relation to age-related changes in cognitive flexibility and infants' emerging symbolic understanding.
authors: Early Cognitive Development Unit, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. g.simcock@psy.uq.edu.au
authors: Gabrielle
authors: G
authors: Simcock
authors: Kara
authors: K
authors: Garrity
authors: Rachel
authors: R
authors: Barr
mesh_terms: D001878:Books, Illustrated; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003118:Color Perception; D032882:Comprehension; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D033262:Narration; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012660:Semantics; D013561:Symbolism; D013690:Television; D014796:Visual Perception