This project seeks to develop a new paradigm for the purpose of studying cognition in pre- and non-verbal populations. Specifically, studies will compare the individual- and observational-learning abilities of pre-verbal human infants and non-verbal monkeys using an entirely new experimental paradigm that combines eye-tracking and 'gaze-click' technology. Gaze click effectively allows non-verbal participants to make responses on a computerized task using either eye blinks or gaze fixation that are equivalent to a mouse click or physical response. This will free participants from having to plan and coordinate a specific motor response. Using this technology, infants and monkeys will be trained to respond in a specific order to three simultaneously presented picture items (e.g., apple, boy, cat) appearing on a computer screen. From trial to trial, however, the pictures change spatial configuration. This procedure prevents participants from using a motor-spatial rule (remembering where on the screen the pictures appeared) and forces them instead to form an abstract ordinal rule (remembering the order of the pictures themselves) to guide their responses. Human infants between the ages of 6 and 16 months and adult capuchin monkeys will be given the opportunity to learn novel ordinal rules either by trial and error learning, where they must discover the order of picture items individually, or by imitation, where they first observe a model execute the rule prior to responding. The work of various researchers have challenged the notion that children younger than 18 months as well as monkeys are capable of imitating novel, arbitrary rules. However, those studies have all relied on motor tasks, confounding what a participant learns with what they can do. Additionally, because these studies used objects such as toys, they may not have adequately controlled for either familiarity or novelty. The use of gaze click to study both individual and imitation learning overcomes these important confounds. As such, results have the potential to transform comparative and developmental cognition research and shed light on both the development and evolution of a cornerstone of human cognition, namely imitation.
The broader impacts of this project are three-fold. First, studies will lead to unique educational and research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students. Second, research comparing individual, observational and imitation learning in human infants and monkeys has the potential to alter our understanding of the development and evolution of social learning in these populations. Finally, results from these studies have the potential to revolutionize comparative and developmental research as it allows investigators to ask more questions of non-verbal populations in greater detail using more objective measures, providing scientists and educators with unique insights into how such minds learn, think and acquire knowledge from others.