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. © 2011 The Authors. Child Development © 2011 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.