title: Do semantic contextual cues facilitate transfer learning from video in toddlers?
abstract: Young children typically demonstrate a transfer deficit, learning less from video than live presentations. Semantically meaningful context has been demonstrated to enhance learning in young children. We examined the effect of a semantically meaningful context on toddlers' imitation performance. Two- and 2.5-year-olds participated in a puzzle imitation task to examine learning from either a live or televised model. The model demonstrated how to assemble a three-piece puzzle to make a fish or a boat, with the puzzle demonstration occurring against a semantically meaningful background context (ocean) or a yellow background (no context). Participants in the video condition performed significantly worse than participants in the live condition, demonstrating the typical transfer deficit effect. While the context helped improve overall levels of imitation, especially for the boat puzzle, only individual differences in the ability to self-generate a stimulus label were associated with a reduction in the transfer deficit.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Georgetown University Washington, DC, USA.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zimmermann
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Binghamton University Binghamton, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Alecia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Moser
authors.affiliation: Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN, USA.
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Grenell
authors.affiliation: Army Research Laboratory, Human Research and Engineering Directorate, Aberdeen Proving Ground Aberdeen, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Kelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dickerson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Georgetown University Washington, DC, USA.
authors.forename: Qianwen
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Binghamton University Binghamton, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gerhardstein
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Georgetown University Washington, DC, USA.
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Barr
keywords: context learning; imitation; learning from screen media; memory binding; social learning; transfer deficit