In two separate experiments, we examined 17-month-olds’ imitation in a third-party context. The aim was to explore how seeing another person responding to a model’s novel action influenced infant imitation. The infants watched while a reliable model demonstrated a novel action with a familiar (Experiment 1) or an unfamiliar (Experiment 2) object to a second actor. The second actor either imitated or did not imitate the novel action of the model. Fewer infants imitated the model’s novel behavior in the non-imitation condition than in the imitation condition in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, infants’ likelihood of imitating was not influenced by whether they had watched the second actor imitating the model’s novel action with the unfamiliar object. The findings indicate that infants take into account a second adult’s actions in a third party context when infants receive information that contradicts their existing knowledge and when it corresponds with their own experiences. If infants do not have prior knowledge about how to handle a certain object, then the second adult’s actions do not seem to matter.

中文翻译：

---

婴儿从第三方观察中进行模仿学习

在两个单独的实验中，我们检查了 17 个月大的孩子在第三方环境中的模仿情况。目的是探索看到另一个人对模特的新颖动作做出反应如何影响婴儿的模仿。婴儿观看可靠的模型向第二个演员展示熟悉的（实验 1）或不熟悉的（实验 2）物体的新奇动作。第二个演员要么模仿，要么没有模仿模特的新颖动作。实验 1 中，在非模仿条件下模仿模型新颖行为的婴儿数量少于在模仿条件下的婴儿数量。在实验 2 中，婴儿模仿的可能性不受他们是否看过第二个演员用不熟悉的对象模仿模型新颖行为的影响。目的。研究结果表明，当婴儿收到与他们现有知识相矛盾的信息并且与他们自己的经历相对应时，婴儿会在第三方环境中考虑第二个成年人的行为。如果婴儿事先不知道如何处理某个物体，那么第二个成年人的行为似乎并不重要。