Learning from other people's mistakes: Causal understanding in learning touse a tool

Despite considerable debate about whether nonhuman primates learn to use to ols via imitation, this type of learning by children has received surprisin gly little attention. The findings of two studies that go some way toward f illing this gap are reported here. Study 1 showed that when 2- and S-year-o ld children (N = 68) were shown a correct solution to a tool-using task (wh ich they could not solve spontaneously), all the children in both age group s managed at least a partial solution. When children were shown an incorrec t solution followed by a correct solution, 2-year-olds again produced only a partial solution. By contrast, most 3-year-olds produced a full solution. Study 2 replicated this age change in a separate sample of children (N = 1 00) with a different tool-using task. Study 2 also showed that 3-year-olds benefit from observing an incorrect action when it can be contrasted with a correct action: they chose the more effective of the two actions. Taken to gether, the two studies indicate that by 3 years of age, children do not in discriminately imitate actions on a tool, but selectively reproduce those a ctions that have a desired causal effect.