Mechanisms of Learning and Acculturation:

1. Mechanisms of Learning and Acculturation: Contingency Learning and Cultural Learning

2. Contingency Learning & Attachment • Just as children learn conditional probabilities in language and physical world, is this a mechanism of learning about their social world? • Watson: Conditional probability of mother’s response given child’s action (cf. Johnson, et al.) • Dweck, Davidson, Nelson, & Enna: Contingencies of teacher’s praise and criticism • Are attachment styles a result of contingency learning?

3. Preliminary Evidence:van den Boom (1994) • A manipulation of sensitive responsiveness • Aims: • 1) To promote maternal respon. to positive & negative expressions or actions of infant Responsiveness = contingency between infant behaviors (crying, vocalizing) and mother behaviors (soothing, verbalizing to infant) • 2) To see if this affects attachment relationship

4. van den Boom, cont.Methods • Ps were 100 irritable (low SES) infants randomly assigned to experimental or control group • Experimental group: 3 intervention sessions (2 hrs each) while infants were between 6 & 9 mos. of age • Baselines taken for both Exp and Control goups of maternal and infant behavior.

5. van den Boom, cont.Methods Intervention targeted at 4 stages of the response process: • Perceiving the infant’s signal • Interpreting it correctly • Selecting an appropriate response • Implementing the response appropriately Note similarity to Dodge’s processing model of aggression

6. Van den Boom, cont.Dependent variables Compared to control group, she predicted: • Increase in mother’s responsiveness (manip. check) • Change in infant’s behavior, including exploratory behavior • Change in attachment classification

7. van den Boom, cont.Results for Mothers Compared to control mothers, intervention mothers were significantly more: • Visually attentive • Contingently responsive • Stimulating (not just reactive): vocalizing, offering play objects • Controlling: verbal disappr & phys. restraint (?)

8. van den Boom, cont.Results for Infants Attachment-relevant behaviors • More sociable (pos. vocalization, smiling) • More (& more sophisticated) physical exploration--picking up and manipulating toys Attachment (measured 3 mos. later): • 31/50 securely attached vs. 11/50 in the control group. (Control grp: 26/50 avoidant)

9. van den Boom (1995)Follow-up • Evaluated mother-child interaction at 18, 24, & 42 mos. • Attachment re-measured at 18 mos.: Would secure attachment remain stable? • Interaction with unfamiliar peer at 42 mos. Would gains generalize to new people?

10. van den Boom, cont.Results • Mothers remained more sensitive: More responsive to pos. & neg. child initiatives, more sharing of interest in objects & activities, more accepting, etc. • 72% securely attached vs. 26% in control group (51% of control group avoidant) • Children more cooperative in peer interaction.

11. van den Boom, cont.Conclusions • High-risk infants (irritable, low SES, relatively insensitive mothers) benefited from intervention. • Enhancing maternal responsiveness fostered attachment security, exploration, sociability. • Intervention effects appeared to endure and generalize (e.g., to peer interactions).

12. How Do Humans Differ?

13. How Do Humans Differ? • Are we humans simply more generally intelligent than other species? • Or are we more intelligent in specific ways? • Tomasello’s “Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis”

14. General vs. Adaptive/Cultural Intelligence Hypotheses • General Intelligence Hypothesis: Bigger brain--> smarter in all ways (better perceptual processing, memory, learning, planning) • Adaptive Intelligence Hypothesis: Abilities evolve in response to species-specific environmental challenges: e.g., caching birds-amazing memory skills homing pigeons--spatial navigation bees--complex communication • What is the human challenge?

15. Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis • Humans come with a specific, early-emerging set of social-cognitive skills • These skills allow them to participate in cultural groups and exchange knowledge with others

16. Are Humans Built for Social Learning?Herrmann, Call, Hernandez-Lloreda, Hare, & Tomasello (2007) • 105 2-1/2 year old children (before formal education) • 106 chimps--one of two closest relatives (3-21 yrs.) • 32 orangutans--more distant relative (3-10 yrs.) All apes were accustomed to humans, lived in semi-natural environments All naïve to the tests • Given a series of complex tasks 8 non-social tasks (general intelligence) 8 social tasks (cultural/social intelligence)

17. Tasks • Non-social: spatial-temporal-causal relations • Spatial: Tracking the position of a reward under a cup • Discriminating quantity • Causal understanding • Social: Understanding others’ intentional actions, perceptions, knowledge • Observational learning: Imitating adult who popped open a tube to retrieve food • Understanding communicative gestures • Understanding others’ intention

19. Herrmann et al. Results

20. Implications and Remaining Questions • General support for Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis • However, children were better than apes at the non-social causality tasks (not tool manipulation) • What is distinctive may be ability to understand unobserved causal forces--mental states of others may be special case • Maybe social tasks more ecologically valid for humans

21. Tomasello & Carpenter, 2007Further Ideas on What Makes Human Social-Cognition Different • A set of social-cognitive-motivational skills that can be termed “shared intentionality.” • Collaborative interactions in which participants share psychological states with each other. • Examples: In problem-solving activities, may have shared goal and shared plans for pursuing goal. In communication, may share experience with one another linguistically

22. Tomasello & Carpenter, cont’d • Analyzed 4 sets of social-cognitive skills • In each case, claim that: Chimps have “individualistic” version of the skill 1-2 yr.old humans have a version based on shared intentionality

23. Tomasello & Carpenter, cont’d1.Gaze following vs. joint attention • Chimps know what others see • But humans also try to share attention with others: e.g., share interest with adult; attempt to initiate joint attention through gestures

24. Tomasello & Carpenter, cont’d2.Social manipulation vs. cooperative (shared) communication • Chimps produce and comprehend many gestures and vocalizations, but communicate to manipulate others and get what they want. • Humans gesture and vocalize also to inform others of things (helpfully) or to share experiences with them. • By 9 mos. use “showing” gestures to initiate joint attention • By 12 mos. point for others to share interest & attention

25. Tomasello & Carpenter, cont’d3.Group activity vs. collaboration • Chimps participate in group activities--hunting--but do they collaborate in the sense of joint goals and plans or are they each pursuing own goal? • Tomasello says no to former, yes to latter. • Evidence: Human-reared chimps & 18-month olds performed collaborative tasks with adults. At some point, adult quits. Only children try to re-engage adult.

26. Tomasello & Carpenter, cont’d4. Social learning vs. instructed learning • Chimps learn from others, but in an individualistic way--they gather information “exploitively.” • Humans sometimes imitate simply to demonstrate to the adult that they are in tune with them. • Adult chimps seldom teach things to youngsters by demonstrating things for them • Gergely & Csibra: Humans are highly attuned to “pedagogical” cues

27. Tomasello & Carpenter, cont’dConclusions Human acculturation and learning is different because • Chimps are mostly concerned with their individual goals • Children are concerned with sharing psychological states & goals • Evolution took existing skills and transformed them in a way that allows human culture.

28. Tomasello—Tanner LectureIs Cooperation Innate?

29. Tomasello—Tanner LectureIs Cooperation Innate? • Early emergence: 14-18 months • Rewards don’t seem to increase it—can decrease it • Evolutionary root: Chimps sometimes do it. • Children do it in cultures with less instruction • Mediated by empathic concerns.

30. For the sake of it.. • Helping • Informing • Sharing Then later, learn to adopt values and norms of culture

31. Meltzoff: Like-Me • Self-other equivalences—foundation of social of social cognition • Can learn about self from observing actions of others & can learn/know about others using self-knowledge—blindfold study • e.g., Repacholi & M—information from others’ interactions are applicable to self: Infants learn what adult disapproves of

32. Can Children Learn Altruism from Others’ Behavior? • 2-1/2 to 3-year olds • Reciprocal or parallel play with E for 6 min. • 4 helping trials (similar to W&T’s)

33. Cortes Results

35. Contingency Learning Can we think of more precise, laboratory studies to look at: • contingency learning • the effects of different contingencies on infant behavior

36. Attachment-Relevant Contingencies • Consistent mother C-->M/M-->C • Tuned-out mother C-->M • Inconsistent mother C-->M/M-->C; C-->M

37. Our Study DV’s with live person: • Subsequent interaction • Exploration of environment • Choice DVs with mother-child shapes: • Surprise at C’s choice • Own preference • Labeling (“good”)