Social learning by following: an analysis.
Letting a learner follow you for a few seconds can speed up teaching, even if you never show the final response.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Barnard et al. (1977) worked with pigeons, not people.
They wanted to see if simply following a demonstrator bird could teach a new skill.
The skill was key-pecking. Birds watched a demo bird walk around. Some could follow it. Others only saw the final peck.
What they found
Birds that could follow the demo learned to peck faster.
Even when the demo never showed the peck, following alone sped learning.
Social learning can work through just walking behind a model.
How this fits with other research
McClannahan et al. (1990) built on this idea. They said generalized imitation is the engine that lets toddlers learn language. The 1977 bird data showed the engine exists; the 1990 paper put it in words.
Rudy Zaltzman et al. (2022) took the same engine into autism therapy. They taught a child a short vocal chain. After that, the child learned new picture names just by watching. Following plus a tiny skill seed created more learning.
Delamater et al. (1986) looked like the opposite at first. They stamped out echolalia instead of using it. But both studies shape vocal chains; one starts with following, the other with prompts. Same toolbox, different first tool.
Why it matters
You do not always need a full model of the target response. Let the learner shadow you first. Walk to the table together. Sit side-by-side. That simple following can prime the brain for the next step. Use it to speed up mand or tact training. Start with shared movement, then add the words or actions you really want.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Learning by "following", probably a common means by which behaviors are socially transmitted from adults to young in many species, was analyzed. Pigeons first learned to eat from a human hand. When the hand then approached an operant key and pecked it, the pigeons followed and quickly learned to do the same, thereby demonstrating social learning. When the hand only led the birds to the area of the key, without demonstrating the key-peck response, the birds learned as rapidly as with a key-peck demonstration. Birds also learned, but less reliably and more slowly, when they could observe the hand's responses but were constrained and unable to follow. "Following" was also shown to engender very rapid learning of a more complex, two-member response chain.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1977 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1977.27-127